THE CYCLIST WHO WAS NO FATALIST

 

 

Lance Armstrong’s career in the gruelling world of international cycling has followed a script forged in hell and an ending conjured in heaven. That he has survived testicular cancer when given 40% chances of survival makes him special enough. But then, that he returned to competitive cycling and went on to win the Tour De France seven times makes him superhuman!

Born in 1971 in Plano, Texas, and raised by a single mother, Linda, Armstrong showed an inclination for the tough sport early on and won the Iron Kids Triathlon in 1984, before turning professional at 16. Suddenly, he was peerless on the professional circuit, winning the World Race Championships (in Oslo) in 1993, stage victories on Tour De France and the World No.1 by 1996!

At the prime of his career, things could not have been going better for him as he made it to the US Olympic team and signed a contract with the French Racing team, Cofidis. And just then tragedy struck. Forced off the bike in excruciating pain, he was diagnosed with a rather advanced stage of testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. Despite having been declared bleak medically, a determined Armstrong pressed the doctors to go in for an aggressive form of chemotherapy. Miraculously it worked, but left him emotionally and physically drained. It accorded him a new perspective (“When I was sick I saw more beauty and triumph and truth in a single day than I ever did in a bike race,” he writes in his autobiography, ‘It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life’), that led to the Lance Armstrong Foundation in 1997. It inspired the LiveStrong movement (of the ubiquitous yellow bands) against cancer through policy advocacy, education and research programmes. As if all that to do with cancer wasn’t enough, the detection of breast cancer in estranged fiancée Sheryl Crow had him possibly reliving the nightmare yet again. In 1998, when Armstrong decided to return to competitive racing, it wasn’t quite a grand comeback (he had to quit a Paris-Nice race in cold conditions), but he soon managed top five finishes in the Tour of Spain and the World Championships. In 1999, he captured the Tour De France, and by 2005, he’d captured it for an unfathomable seventh straight time! It almost became the ‘Tour De Lance’!

Through all this, he battled numerous allegations of using performance-enhancing dope, only to emerge untainted every time. Sports scientists agree that Armstrong is one of the most disciplined and focussed athletes in the world whose extraordinary achievement against all odds make him a living legend. His best friend and teammate, George Hincapie, put it best after Armstrong retired in 2005, “Everybody is looking for the next Lance but there won’t be another Lance for another century.” We agree.