Lance Armstrong is the ultimate athlete, a cancer survivor, who dominated the most brutally intense event in sports. Armstrong won seven consecutive Tours from 1999-2005, He not only made history, erasing previous records, he revolutionized cycling.
By doing so, Lance Armstrong became one of the most controversial athletes in his sport. His athletic prowess was so unbelievable that it divided mere mortals into two camps: those he inspired against those who suspect that he must have been doping.
With Armstrong, it all comes down to belief. No one believes in Armstrong more strongly than Armstrong himself. Of everything, that was perhaps his most vital winning ingredient.
A modest, fatherless childhood and being written off as an athlete when cancer doctors gave him less than a 50/50 chance of living left Armstrong with a chip on his shoulder as large as his native Texas. “I’ll show ‘em” could be his motto. More than merely competitive, Armstrong thrives on confrontation. Deadly illness, dizzying mountain climbs, accusations of doping, perceived slights from other riders — all these and more he burned as fuel to power his intense drive.
His first post-op words to the surgeon who removed tumors from his brain, according to the cyclist, were “I can kick your ass on a bike any day.”
At the Tour, the most ferocious demonstration of his implacable will came in the mist-cooled Pyrenees in 2003, when his winning streak brushed within a whisker of a premature end. Accelerating uphill away from his rivals, Armstrong shaved too close to the roadside crowds and snagged his handlebar on a spectator’s bag, slamming him to the ground.
Riders with less steel and less luck — Armstrong was fortunate not to break a bone — might have thrown up their hands in despair. Not him. His eyes burning charcoal black with fury, Armstrong jumped back on his bike and powered past everyone, rescuing what until then had been a sub-par race for him. Of the Tours he won, that was the only one where he showed hints of vulnerability.
“Everyone has a bad day, an off day but Lance is that well trained that it never happens to him. Hats off,” says 13-time Tour veteran Stuart O’Grady. “For seven years, to never fall sick, to never have (a serious) accident. The level of professionalism that he’s shown has made cycling that much bigger. Armstrong is a superstar, a celebrity in all aspects of life.”
Passing years, wealth, fame, fatherhood and traveling the world smoothed some of Armstrong’s abrasiveness. As much as he showed a mean streak on the bike, he has shown compassion off it, throwing himself into campaigning against cancer with the same zeal he once reserved for cycling. But even as he developed a taste for modern art, populated gossip pages and rubbed shoulders with presidents and pop stars, the need to prove himself still smoldered under his tailored suits.
After his last win in 2005, Armstrong announced that he was “100 percent retired” and that “it would take an absolute miracle to bring me back.” In fact, it took less than that in 2008 — just a belief that his successors weren’t worthy and that he could still be a contender, and anger that doping accusations had followed him into retirement.
“I’m doing this for my kids,” he told biographer John Wilcockson, explaining his comeback. “I don’t want them growing up and reading all these things about me and doping.”
Yet nothing Armstrong does will silence the suspicions. They appear destined for perpetual limbo, with Armstrong unable to prove he was clean — short of spending 24/7, 365 days a year under constant surveillance, who could? — and his accusers unable so far to produce incontrovertible evidence he was dirty.
It’s an unsatisfactory situation that bothers even some of those who know, like and respect him. Prince Albert II of Monaco, a member of the International Olympic Committee, says Armstrong wouldn’t be his athlete of the decade because of the doubts.
“Obviously you can also argue, ‘OK, maybe he took something a few years ago and then now how could he be on something after winning the battle against cancer? How could he afford simply health-wise to be on any kind of drugs?’ But he still had results after that, incredible ones,” the prince told the AP. “It is a very tricky one.”
What is certain is that five of the eight riders who shared the Tour podium with Armstrong in his winning years served doping bans at some point in their careers. Another two were allegedly tied to doping rings. Armstrong was the leader among a sullied bunch.
Armstrong’s laserlike focus on the Tour, building his year and team toward that sole goal, had no equal. His attention to detail and use of new technology raised standards in cycling. In spring training, on empty, rain-soaked roads and snow-blocked mountain passes, Armstrong methodically reconnoitered the route, planning where he would strike during the three Tour weeks in July. Traditionalists in France huffed at Armstrong’s “American” ways, bridling that he steamrollered over their beloved race without the off-the-cuff panache of a rider like Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx, whom Armstrong calls the greatest cyclist ever.
But, in doing so, the French also paid Armstrong a strange backhanded compliment, because only those at very top draw such emotion in this nation of revolution.
“The French public doesn’t like people who win,” says Jean-Francois Pescheux, who as competition director for the Tour designs the route. “The first year, they’re happy. The second year, less so and at the third, they have had enough.”