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Lance Armstrong Bio
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Lance ArmstrongLance Armstrong is the only person to have won the Tour de France a record of seven times—not to mention consecutively. Lance Armstrong is a retired professional cyclist who became renowned not only for this and many other professional cycling accomplishments, but for his battles with metastasized testicular cancer as well many allegations of drug use.
Lance Armstrong was born on September 18, 1971, and was a triathlete, competing in adult competitions as young as fourteen. He went professional in 1992, when he was only twenty-one, and the following year he experienced his first major victory winning the World Cycling Championship in Oslo, Norway. With professional Team Motorola, Armstrong went on to win stages of the Tour de France, and in 1995 the Tour DuPont, the premier U.S. cycling event.
In 1997 Armrongst switched to Team Cofidis, but the following year he joined U.S. Postal (1998 to 2004) until he moved on to Discovery Channel for his last year of professional cycling.
Armstrong was diagnosed with metastasized testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs on October 2, 1996; he was twenty-five and was given very little hope for recovery. But after extensive surgery and severe chemotherapy, Lance resumed training.
His true comeback came in 1999 when he won his first Tour de France, the first of six more to come. His cycling competitors have included Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, and Andreas Kloden. After his 2004 Tour de France victory, Lance Armstrong became the first man since renowned cyclist Gino Bartali (in 1948) to win three consecutive mountain stages.
He was named Sportsman of the Year in 2002 by magazine Sports Illustrated; he won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award in 2003; Armstrong was Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year from 2002 to 2005; and he received the ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete (from ESPN) from 2003 to 2006.
Lance Armstrong commemorated his athletic success and cancer recovery with Nike through the Lance Armstrong Foundation, founded in 1997. He also helped to develop and launch the Livestrong yellow rubber wristbands in support of cancer victims and survivors and to raise funds for the foundation. More than 58 million Livestrong wristbands ($1 US each) had been sold as of January 2006. Lance Armstrong has also been a member of President George W Bush’s Cancer Panel since 2002.
Interestingly, Armstrong had cameo roles in films Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story in 2004, starring Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, and Ben Stiller; and You, Me and Dupree in 2006, starring Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, and Owen Wilson.
Armstrong has also continually faced allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, but has denied them all as false rumor. The allegations have come from many sources, including sports directors Pierre Ballester and David Walsh, Mike Anderson, and Betsy and Frankie Andreu.
Lance was married to Kristin Richard from 1997 to 2003, and the two have three children, Luke, born in 1999, and twins Isabelle and Grace, born in 2001. After their divorce, Armstrong dated Sheryl Crow and they announced their engagement in September 2005, but split five months later.
Armstrong credits his professional success to a combination of his training, riding style, team strength and support, and physical attributes, to former elite cyclist Chris Carmichael, who worked as Lance’s coach, and his team’s sports director, Johan Bruyneel.
He officially retired from racing in 2005 after his final win at the Tour de France that year. YUDDY |
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