cycling

It almost never happened. Though he was a world-champion cyclist at 21, by 1998 Lance Armstrong was a 26-year-old cancer survivor who'd never finished better than 36th at the Tour de France and was struggling to reenter professional cycling. The big teams didn't want him, and he wasn't sure he wanted the sport. His first race back was the five-day Ruta del Sol, a February warmup for the long season ahead. He finished an encouraging 14th. But just two weeks later, while contesting the much more difficult Paris–Nice, he rolled to a stop in the middle of a cold, windy second stage and got off his bike. Even he doubted he would ever get back on.

Pretty incredible story from Outside magazine. He won his first Tour de France in '99 - but hours before the race started he very nearly crashed into a car. The world would never have known him. One wonders how many other people come that close to stardom and something intervenes.

This is a good article looking at the start of a legend - and a reminder of how incredible he was back then.

Today, he showed some of his age. He gained enough time in the Individual Time Trial to get back into 3rd place but his teammate Contador proved that he is the best rider in le Tour this year. Contador smoked everyone in an impressive ride - this Tour will definitely go down as one of the most interesting.

Controversial, undoubtedly. But watching the Tour de France today, I think Lance will soon prove to be the greatest athlete alive in my eyes. The Tour de France is probably the most grueling sporting event. On any given day, it is less challenging than the Ironman competition (sorry Iron-Kimmi) but it runs for 3 weeks with 2 rest days.

Lance dominated it for 7 years, an unprecedented achievement. After several years off, he came back this year at 37 (the oldest rider in the tour this year is 40). Today he proved that he can control his ego and work for his team when he is not the leader. There was some doubt that would work for Contador (the current Tour leader and a teammate to Lance) if that were best for the team. But today he did what was best for the team by hanging back to keep an eye on a guy named Wiggins that could threaten Contador's lead. The price for doing that was dropping from 2nd overall to 5th overall in the standings (something he hopes to reverse in the time trial on Thursday).

His reward was yet another poorly thought out move by Contador that screwed over another of their teammates, Kloden. Lance has previously questioned Contador's tactics and Contador's actions today again suggested that he has little strategic understanding as he hurt the team with a poorly timed acceleration. Even then, Lance has put the team above his ego by not calling Contador out on it.

Lance may yet prove me wrong - in the coming days he might try to go for an overall win but I hope he doesn't. If he continues working for the team rather than just himself, I think it will cement his legacy in ways his 7 wins alone would not. It will show that he is even more well-rounded than most give him credit for.

I should mention that the NY Times and ESPN coverage of today's race was disappointingly poor. Neither of these outlets appear to have any understanding of cycling strategy or even that it is a team sport. The idea that Lance is falling behind because he is not up to the task ignores the fact that his teammate is leading and in this situation, Lance is not supposed to go all out for himself.

Go ahead, attack me.