Lance Edward Armstrong (born Lance Edward Gunderson on September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist who is best known for winning the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and support. He last rode for (and helped found) UCI ProTeam Team RadioShack.
In October 1996 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, with a tumor that had metastasized to his brain and lungs. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy, and his prognosis was originally poor. He went on to win the Tour de France each year from 1999 to 2005, and is the only person to win seven times, having broken the previous record of five wins, shared by Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, and Jacques Anquetil.
In 1999, he was named the ABC Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In 2000 he won the Prince of Asturias Award in Sports. In 2002, Sports Illustrated magazine named him Sportsman of the Year. He was also named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for the years 2002–2005. He received ESPN's ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, and won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award in 2003. Armstrong announced his retirement from racing on July 24, 2005, at the end of the 2005 Tour de France, but returned to competitive cycling in January 2009, and finished third in the 2009 Tour de France. He confirmed he had retired from competitive cycling for good on February 16, 2011.
Armstrong was born on September 18, 1971, at Methodist Hospital in Oak Cliff, Texas in the southern sector of Dallas. At the age of 12, he began his sporting career as a swimmer at the City of Plano Swim Club and finished fourth in Texas state 1,500-meter freestyle. He abandoned swimming-only competition after seeing a poster for a junior triathlon which he entered and won easily.
In the 1987–1988 Tri-Fed/Texas ("Tri-Fed" was the former name of USA Triathlon), Armstrong was the number one ranked triathlete in the 19-and-under group; second place was Chann McRae, who became a US Postal Service cycling teammate and the 2002 USPRO national champion. Armstrong's points total for 1987 as an amateur was better than the five professionals ranked that year. At 16, Armstrong became a professional triathlete and became national sprint-course triathlon champion in 1989 and 1990 at 18 and 19, respectively.
It became clear that his greatest talent was for bicycle racing after he won the U.S. amateur championship in 1991. Representing the U.S., he finished 14th in the 1992 Summer Olympics. This performance earned him his first professional contract with Motorola, riding alongside Sean Yates. He won his first race with Motorola, the Trophee Laigueglia in Italy, beating the favourite Moreno Argentin. Also in 1992, Armstrong competed in the Tour of Ireland race.
In 1993, Armstrong won 10 one-day events and stage races. He stunned the cycling world when at age 21 he became one of the youngest riders to ever win the UCI Road World Championship, held in pouring rain in Norway that year. Prior to his World's win, he took his first stage win at the Tour de France, in the stage from Châlons-sur-Marne to Verdun. He was in 97th place overall when he abandoned the 1993 race in the Alps after the 12th stage.
He also collected the Thrift Drug Triple Crown of Cycling: the Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh, the K-Mart West Virginia Classic, and the CoreStates USPRO national championship in Philadelphia. Thrift Drug said it would award $1 million to a rider winning all three races, a feat previously unachieved. At the USPRO championship, Armstrong sat up on his bicycle on the final lap, took out a comb, combed his hair and smiled for the cameras.
In 1994, he again won the Thrift Drug Classic and came second in the Tour DuPont in the United States. His successes in Europe were second placings in the Clásica de San Sebastián and Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
He won the Clásica de San Sebastián in 1995, and this time won the Tour DuPont and took a handful of stage victories in Europe including the stage to Limoges in the Tour De France. He dedicated the win to teammate Fabio Casartelli who died in a crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet on the 15th stage, two days before.
Armstrong's successes were much the same in 1996. He became the first American to win the La Flèche Wallonne and again won the Tour DuPont. However, his performances began to suffer and he was only able to compete for five days in the Tour De France. At Atlanta he was only able to finish 6th in the time trial and 12th in the road race in the 1996 Olympic Games.
Armstrong's work outside of cycling
In 1997, Armstrong founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which supports people affected by cancer. The foundation has become one of the top 10 groups funding cancer research in the U.S., raising more than $325 million from the sale of yellow Livestrong bracelets During his original retirement beginning after the 2005 season, he also maintained other interests. He was the pace car driver of the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 for the 2006 Indianapolis 500.
In 2007, Armstrong with Andre Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Warrick Dunn, Jeff Gordon, Mia Hamm, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mario Lemieux, Alonzo Mourning, and Cal Ripken, Jr. founded Athletes for Hope, a charity which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires non-athletes to volunteer and support the community. In 2008 and 2009 he appeared on the PBS Kids show Arthur as himself. In these two appearances he taught biking skills and helped spread cancer awareness, respectively.
In August 2009, Armstrong headlined the inaugural charity ride "Pelotonia" in Columbus, Ohio, riding over 100 miles on Saturday with the large group of cyclists. He personally addressed the riders the Friday evening before the two-day ride and helped the ride raise millions for cancer research.
Allegations of doping
For much of the second phase of his career, Armstrong has faced persistent allegations of doping. A number of high-profile cyclists, some of them credible, some not, assorted journalists, and even one retired cyclist that never rode on a team with Armstrong (Greg LeMond) have alleged that he cheated. To date, nothing has "stuck", and Armstrong retains respect and prestige in many circles, but certainly not all.
In addition, Armstrong has been criticised for his disagreements with outspoken opponents of doping such as Paul Kimmage and Christophe Bassons. Bassons wrote a number of articles for a French newspaper during the 1999 Tour de France which made references to doping in the peloton. Subsequently, Armstrong had an altercation with Bassons during the 1999 Tour De France where Bassons said Armstrong rode up alongside on the Alpe d'Huez stage to tell him "it was a mistake to speak out the way I [Bassons] do and he [Armstrong] asked why I was doing it. I told him that I'm thinking of the next generation of riders. Then he said 'Why don't you leave, then?' Armstrong confirmed the story. On the main evening news on TF1, a national television station, Armstrong said: "His accusations aren't good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he's wrong and he would be better off going home". Kimmage, a professional cyclist in the 1980s who later became a sports journalist, referred to Armstrong as a "cancer in cycling". He also asked Armstrong questions in relation to his "admiration for dopers" at a press conference at the Tour of California in 2009, provoking a scathing reaction from Armstrong. This spat continued and is exemplified by Kimmage's articles in The Sunday Times.
Armstrong has continually denied using illegal performance-enhancing drugs and has described himself as "the most tested athlete in the world". A 1999 urine sample showed traces of corticosteroid in an amount that was not in the positive range. A medical certificate showed he used an approved cream for saddle sores which contained the substance
From his return to cycling in the fall of 2008 through March 2009, Armstrong submitted to 24 unannounced drug tests by various anti-doping authorities. All of the tests were negative for performance-enhancing drugs.
Handling of urine tests
In October 2005, in response to calls from the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for an independent investigation, the UCI appointed Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman to investigate the handling of urine tests by the French national anti-doping laboratory, LNDD. Vrijman was head of the Dutch anti-doping agency for ten years; since then he has worked as a defense attorney defending high-profile athletes against doping charges. Vrijman's report cleared Armstrong because of improper handling and testing. The report said tests on urine samples were conducted improperly and fell so short of scientific standards that it was "completely irresponsible" to suggest they "constitute evidence of anything." The recommendation of the commission's report was no disciplinary action against any rider on the basis of LNDD research. It also called upon the WADA and LNDD to submit themselves to an investigation by an outside independent authority. The WADA rejected these conclusions stating "The Vrijman report is so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical.". The IOC Ethics Commission subsequently censured Dick Pound, the President of WADA and a member of the IOC, for his statements in the media that suggested wrongdoing by Armstrong.
In April 2009, Dr. Michael Ashenden said that "the LNDD absolutely had no way of knowing athlete identity from the sample they're given. They have a number on them, but that's never linked to an athlete's name. The only group that had both the number and the athlete's name is the federation, in this case it was the UCI." He added "There was only two conceivable ways that synthetic EPO could've gotten into those samples. One, is that Lance Armstrong used EPO during the '99 Tour. The other way it could've got in the urine was if, as Lance Armstrong seems to believe, the laboratory spiked those samples. Now, that's an extraordinary claim, and there's never ever been any evidence the laboratory has ever spiked an athlete's sample, even during the Cold War, where you would've thought there was a real political motive to frame an athlete from a different country. There's never been any suggestion that it happened."
Dr. Michael Ashenden's statements are at odds with the findings of the Vrijman report "According to Mr. Ressiot, the manner in which the LNDD had structured the results table of its report – i.e. listing the sequence of each of the batches, as well as the exact number of urine samples per batch, in the same (chronological) order as the stages of the 1999 Tour de France they were collected at – was already sufficient to allow him to determine the exact stage these urine samples referred to and subsequently the identity of the riders who were tested at that stage." The Vrijman report also says "Le Monde of July 21 and 23, 1999 reveal that the press knew the contents of original doping forms of the 1999 Tour de France".
Marathon
Armstrong ran the 2006 New York City Marathon with friends Robert McElligott and Lewis Miles. With Nike, he assembled a pace team of Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Hicham El Guerrouj to help him reach 3 hours. He struggled with shin splints and was on pace for a little above 3 hours but pushed through the last 5 miles (8.0 km) to 2h 59m 36s, finishing 856th. He said the race was extremely difficult compared to the Tour de France. "For the level of condition that I have now, that was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done. I never felt a point where I hit the wall. It was really a gradual progression of fatigue and soreness." The NYC Marathon had a dedicated camera on Armstrong throughout the event. This camera, according to Armstrong, pushed him to continue through points in which he would have normally "stopped and stretched". He also helped raise $600,000 for his LiveStrong campaign during the run.
With more dedication to marathon training, Armstrong ran the 2007 NYC Marathon in 2h 46m 43s finishing 232nd, a substantial improvement from his previous year. On April 21, 2008, he ran the Boston Marathon in 2h 50m 58s, finishing in the top 500. (source : wikipedia.org)
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