A record-setting seven Tour de France titles have made Lance Armstrong about as popular in France as the Wehrmacht.

Yet, the irony is the right kind of runner-up finish to teammate Alberto Contador this week, should it come to that, could garner him the level of popularity and respect that has been elusive in victory.

Should Contador pedal up the Champs-Elysees Sunday to win the world's foremost cycling event with Armstrong a contributing part of his retinue, it would cast the American in the kind of sympathetic light his ironman dominance has yet to earn.

It has been better, of late, to commit the considerable sin — in French eyes — of calling California sparkling wine by the sacred title of "champagne" than risk the wrath of invoking Armstrong's name in connection with France's beloved race.

Never mind that Armstrong is a courageous cancer survivor and inspiration to millions, 42 percent of French race fans surveyed by the sports daily L'Equipe prior to the start of the Tour said they didn't want him to take part. The last French champion, Bernard Hinault, has declared, "I hope Contador gives him a beating."

Many see Armstrong's dominance as drug enhanced, a view fanned by numerous books, including one titled "La Grande Imposture" (the Great Imposter) and magazine articles. For them, it is unfathomable that Armstrong could so thoroughly dominate, trouncing the continent's best riders. Forget that Armstrong, who may be the world's most well-tested athlete, has yet to fail a drug test.

That he has come to be perceived as aloof and cold to the culture make it all the more galling. Some of it, no doubt, stemming from the media shots he's taken and episodes of being spat upon by spectators and dowsed with beer.

But to have him come back now at the advanced age — for a cyclist — of 37 after a four-year layoff and wage an inspired and character-enhancing battle with the 26-year-old Contador would demand reevaluation.

Of course, with some of the most challenging mountain stages including the forbidding Mont Ventoux, looming, nobody should write Armstrong out of an eighth triumph just yet. But if Contador holds on, Armstrong could enhance his legacy by remaining the supportive teammate he was in Sunday's alpine stage. To be a domestique, as the self-sacrificing, role-playing teammates are called, would be to underline his commitment to the sport.

Armstrong as a sympathetic figure at the Tour? Now, that would be an upset.