Lance Armstrong Criticized After Boasting About Overtaking Mike Pence on Bike Path

Vice President Mike Pence speaks following his tour of the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship USNS Comfort, Miami, Fla., on June 18, 2019. Joe Skipper/Getty Images

Disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong was blasted after tweeting that he passed Vice President Mike Pence on a bike path in Massachusetts.

Armstrong, 47, tweeted about the encounter with Pence, who was in the state for a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee.

“I can’t drop many people on a bike these days, but I just blew the [expletive] doors off Mike Pence on a Nantucket bike path,” Armstrong wrote on Twitter. “Day. Made.”

Other users heavily criticized the tweet.

“A younger man who rode a bike professionally passed an older man on a bike. That made your day,” one person tweeted.

Lance Armstrong at the Livestrong Global Cancer Summit in Dublin, Ireland, in Aug. 24, 2009. Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, but was stripped of those victories in 2012 after a protracted doping scandal. Peter Morrison/AP

Another wrote, “He’s 13 years older than you and was never a professional cyclist..”

“You literally cheated to get famous and now you’re bragging about going faster on a bike than a guy who’s never raced in his life. Nice, dude,” a third chimed in.

“Finally a race you didn’t need to dope for to win,” said another.

Armstrong later acknowledged the tweets he received.

“Some people can’t take a joke or even having a little fun on twitter. Lightin’ (sic) the [expletive] up people. But seriously, I did blow his doors off!!” he added.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the International Cycling Union in 2012 for doping.

Pence’s spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, made a note of Armstrong’s comment.

She wrote: “Couldn’t quite hang onto those Tour de France titles, but hey, at least you beat Karen & Mike Pence on a leisurely bike ride! Congrats?”

In May, he told NBC Sports that he wouldn’t change a thing in his career, despite the doping.

“I wouldn’t change the way I acted. I mean I would, but this is a longer answer,” Armstrong said. “Primarily, I wouldn’t change the lessons that I’ve learned. I don’t learn all the lessons if I don’t act that way. I don’t get investigated and sanctioned if I don’t act the way I acted.”

He added: “If I just doped and didn’t say a thing, none of that would have happened. None of it. I was begging for; I was asking for them to come after me. It was an easy target.”

In 2013, he admitted to using EPO, testosterone, human growth hormone, blood transfusions, cortisone, and other blood doping.

“I didn’t invent the culture, and I didn’t try to stop the culture ... and the sport is now paying the price of that, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t have access to anything else that nobody else did,” he said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Fundraising Update

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republic National Committee pulled in $105 million in the second quarter.

While dozens of Democrats spar for the nomination to face Trump, the Republican president faces no viable opposition as he enjoys widespread support within his party.

President Donald Trump waves before boarding Air Force One prior to departing from Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Aug. 9, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said the fundraising haul “is a testament to the overwhelming support for President Trump.”

“No Democrat candidate can match this level of enthusiasm or President Trump’s outstanding record of results,” he said in a statement.

“The RNC’s record-breaking fundraising has allowed us to identify troves of new supporters online and continue investing in our unprecedented field program,” added Ronna McDaniel, the Republic National Committee chairwoman. “Our grassroots army is already hard at work–putting us in prime position to re-elect President Trump and Republicans across the country.”

According to the campaign, it raised some $54 million while the committee drew in another $51 million.

Trump’s campaign said on June 19 that it raised $24.8 million less than 24 hours after he launched his 2020 campaign.

“Jaw-dropping numbers from the 24 hours of the day [Donald Trump] announced his re-election campaign: $24.8 million raised. Do the math: that’s more than a million dollars an hour for an entire day. On top of an electric rally in Orlando, this shows huge Trump enthusiasm,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said at the time.

Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.