The Ride of His Life

By Thomas Sancton/Paris Sunday, July 18, 1999
    • The three-week, 2,287-mile Tour de France, Europe's premier bicycle race, is one of the world's great tests of human endurance. Every summer more than 10 million fans line the roadsides--and millions more tune in on TV--to watch the riders sprint, climb and sweat their way through every variety of French landscape. The race finishes on the Champs Elysees in Paris, where the winner gets a hero's welcome.

    In a sense, Lance Armstrong started the race a hero. In 1996 the Texas-born cyclist was found to be suffering from testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs. The prognosis could not have been grimmer. But by the time the dust settled on the 13th leg of the Tour de France last Saturday, 27-year-old Armstrong had run up a nearly 8-min. lead on his closest competitor, a big cushion in this 20-stage race. And if his lead holds, Armstrong's achievement will be all the more remarkable. "The Tour de France is like running a marathon every day for 20 days," says Mark Gorski, manager of the U.S. Postal Service team, for which Armstrong rides. "Very few sporting events are that demanding."

    The event's organizers could not have prayed for a more inspiring symbol of survival. The famous race itself has seemed in dire condition ever since one team was expelled and six others dropped out of last year's race in a spectacular doping scandal. But Armstrong's prowess has made most fans forget about all that, at least temporarily. "Armstrong's beating his illness is a sign that the Tour can beat its illness," says Jean-Marie Leblanc, director general of the Societe du Tour de France.

    A native of Plano, Texas, Armstrong had already chalked up an impressive record before he was sidelined. In Oslo in 1993, he became the second youngest world road-racing champion; that same year, and again in 1995, he won a leg of the Tour; in April 1996 he won Belgium's Fleche Wallonne race. Then came the terrible news.

    In October 1996 doctors told Armstrong he had testicular cancer that had metastasized, affecting one lung and provoking two brain tumors. "If you'd told me the day after I was diagnosed that I'd be here today leading the Tour de France, there'd be no way I'd believe you," says Armstrong as he stretches his thigh muscles in a hotel room along the race circuit. He is taut and lean, and his close-cropped brown hair has replaced the temporary baldness caused by his treatment--three months of debilitating chemotherapy and a brain operation to remove the tumors.

    After the cancer was diagnosed, Armstrong says, "the first thing I thought was, 'Oh, no! My career's in jeopardy!' Then they kept finding new problems, and I forgot about my career--I was more worried about making it to my next birthday. I had the same emotions when I was sick as I have as a competitive athlete. At first I was angry; [then] I felt motivated and driven to get better. And then when I knew I was getting better, I knew I was winning." His experience has made him "a better man, just like all survivors. I'm more aware of the things around me, and I'm more patient. I'm a happier person than I was before."

    The Texan is not happy about persistent suggestions in the French press that his remarkable comeback may be caused by the same kind of performance-enhancing drugs that French and other riders were caught taking. Armstrong, who has repeatedly passed blood and urine tests, denounces the Gallic grousing as "disturbing" and "unfair." He attributes his results to "sweat" and hard training, adding, "This team has done more work than anyone else." Most racing teams are built around a single star, whose cohort protects him from crowding rivals, brings him food and water and shelters him from the wind. "Their job," says Gorski, "is to deliver Lance to the critical point in the race with as much energy left as possible."

    But then it's up to Armstrong to pump his way to the front. Despite his lead, Armstrong must perform well and avoid accidents on this week's climb through the Pyrenees before he can claim victory in Paris next Sunday. But the outcome almost doesn't matter. With his miraculous recovery, his return to top-level cycling--and the expected birth of his first child in October--Armstrong doesn't need a trophy to prove he's a winner.