America at Large: Apart from the Tour de France itself, it's difficult to imagine an occasion less suited to riveting television than a bunch of people from the sports broadcasting industry dressing up in tuxedos and, in an orgy of self-congratulation, presenting trophies to other members of the sports broadcasting industry, writes George Kimball

In the 13-year run of the ESPN-sponsored event we've never been able to bring ourselves to view an ESPY telecast from start to finish, and the fact Lance Armstrong had been engaged as guest host of last weekend's ceremony made it even less likely we were going to watch the 2006 edition, but Armstrong's crude, gay-baiting display of humour that night has been preserved on video clips for anyone who cares to watch.

With a click or two of the mouse you can probably find it yourself.

Although ESPN is headquartered in Connecticut, the programme was actually taped in California a week ago, around about the time the Tour was climbing through the Pyrenees, and it wasn't broadcast until Sunday, by which time the spandex crowd was rolling into La Toussuire.

The star-studded crowd at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood included the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, a sometime Armstrong cycling buddy whose most noteworthy film role came in last year's portrayal of a bisexual cowboy in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. Gyllenhaal was evidently an irresistible target for Lance, who in his role as master of ceremonies noted the actor's presence and then asked why he was seated in a front row.

"I thought you liked it in the rear," cracked Armstrong. To their credit, many of the audience did audibly groan, but most, including a somewhat sheepish Gyllenhaal, laughed.

Lance waited until the guffaws died down before postulating he had, of course, meant the rear of the theatre. As more than one TV critic has pointed out, the most remarkable aspect of the ill-considered "humour" was that while the programme was taped, it survived the final cut and made it onto Sunday night's telecast.

Fun-loving guy that he is, Armstrong then proceeded to note the presence of another actor, Matthew McConaughey, recently named by a supermarket magazine as "sexiest man alive".

"We don't all have to turn and look," said Armstrong. "We all know what he looks like. Jake, eyes up here!"

Gyllenhaal once again joined in the laughter at his own expense. What he should have done, of course, was to march up onto the stage and bitch-slap Armstrong with the cameras rolling.

Lance also lampooned himself (his particular history of cancer served as the basis for a one-testicle joke) and, of course, the French.

Armstrong probably couldn't keep himself from gloating over the result of the World Cup final, and on the ESPY telecast he claimed that in the wake of the loss by Zidane and his mates, "all their players have tested positive for being assholes". One "journalist" covering the proceedings in Hollywood felt compelled to explain that "a French newspaper had erroneously accused (Armstrong) of doping after one of his seven Tour de France victories", which, if you ask us, is not terribly unlike saying that some US newspapers have "erroneously" accused Barry Bonds of using steroids.

Considering that just a few weeks earlier Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the World Series champions White Sox, had been pilloried for describing a Chicago sportswriter as "a bleeping fag" (Ozzie was fined and ordered to undergo sensitivity training), reaction to Armstrong's anal-sex joke has been strangely muted.

That Lance has gotten what amounts to a free pass is no doubt at least in part due to his status as a sportsman-turned- humanitarian icon who can do no wrong. And it didn't hurt that he was out of the country by the time the spit hit the fan: No sooner had the ESPY telecast aired than Armstrong hopped on a plane to France, the better to muck things up for Floyd Landis.

Other than the fact he seems to be turning up in a yellow jersey a lot these days, we couldn't tell you much at all about Landis, but the mere fact that Armstrong doesn't much like him has us rooting big-time for Floyd as the Tour turns toward the Champs Élysées.

Upon arriving at l'Alpe d'Huez this week, Armstrong proceeded to rip Tour de France officials over the doping scandal that preceded this year's edition, claiming "it never would have happened on our watch". One Gallic newspaper greeted the seven-time Tour champion with the headline, "Welcome to France, Trou du Cul!" - trou du cul being French for "asshole". ("Gee, why didn't I think of that?" Jake Gyllenhaal must be wondering.)

Like, say, Bono, Lance has used his celebrity status to ingratiate himself in the seats of power. But Lance doesn't seem particular, or even embarrassed, about who he hangs around with.

It's one thing for Armstrong to cycle with Gyllenhaal and McConaughey and feel that entitles him to make queer jokes on national television. But another of Lance's occasional cycling buddies is a fellow Texan who happens to be the president of the United States.

It's all well and good for Armstrong to go biking with George W Bush and to lobby him for millions for cancer research while he's at it.

But before this week is out, Bush is going to exercise the first veto of his presidency when he kills an appropriation for stem-cell research just passed by the Senate, and, unless we miss our guess, you won't hear a peep out of Lance.

While passing out the ESPYS, incidentally, they eventually got around to the one for "Male Athlete of the Year", which, by purest coincidence, went to the Trou du Cul himself.

"It wasn't rigged, honest!" protested the MC.

Who are we to disbelieve him? He is, after all, Lance Armstrong.