Biography of Lance Armstrong

The strength and human weakness September 18, 1971

Who is Lance Armstrong?


His story to Hollywood might also become the script for a drama: a deadly disease that strikes a promising athlete. Although the situation is desperate, he not only strives to defeat his evil, but also returns to compete and win all the prizes the most coveted. It seems incredible, but it is reality.

But the reality and the history does not end on a goal line; his experience led him to join a community of cancer patients, and motivates him to devote the same determination and the same passion that puts on bike pedals also races struggle to fight the disease.

Born in Plano, Texas on September 18, 1971, Lance Armstrong began his career very young: Linda's mother supports it since the beginning. Just 13 years old compete in one of the hardest sport known to man, the Triathlon, in which athletes perform long and gruelling kilometres to go swimming, then riding a bike and ride.

Lance Armstrong decides to 16 years that his profession is that of the athlete. Finished his studies and graduated enters the national cycling team for an experimental Olympic project in Colorado Springs. Here begins his career on two wheels.

Compete in amateur categories: efforts bring results, and Lance to qualify for the World Junior Championships in Moscow 1989. In 1991 she won the National Amateur Championship and then immediately goes into professionals.

Don't spend a lot of time and Lance won the national professional Championship. His star shines at international level: some WINS stage of the Tour de France, a World Championship and several victories at the Tour du Pont. In short, reach the top of the world rankings. In 1996 he is the number 1: the cycling team at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

While it looks towards a future of success happens something so traumatic tears off the pedals to throw him into a terrible punishment: at the beginning of October of 1996 doctors communicate to be suffering from cancer. His life changes forever.

The analysis reveal an advanced cancer in the testicle. The ability to heal seem less of 50%: Lance begins to undergo aggressive chemotherapy treatment. The risk of collateral damage as a shadow accompanying the cure period. Chemotherapy begins to function and Lance, gradually, can even think about returning to competitive activity.

Cancer leaves him a profound physical but also emotional scar: despite Lance today remember that sad period of life as "... the best thing that ever happened to me". The new mindset and new perspectives led him beyond its sports commitments: fonda so the Lance Armstrong Foundation "with the goal of helping others in their fight against cancer.

The complete healing of Lance seems miraculous. After the experience with the French team Cofidis, he finds himself without a team until the "United States Postal Service" to believe and bet on him. If he wasn't back in the saddle the history would still have been positive, but it would not have been enough for Lance. Armstrong feels the need to put himself to the test again. On his return in a competitive world is not easy. Participates in 1998 to a cold and Paris-Nice little lucky that ends badly as they retreated. Many people think that Lance Armstrong is a champion at sunset. Lance later admitted that it was not ready to go back so soon.

Withdraws so at Boone, North Carolina, with his friend and trainer Chris Carmichael for a week of hard training, during which Lance back to learning to love the bike again, and especially to rebuild the courage to try again. The race that marks its return is a symbol that gives him the reason and motivation to do well: "Lance Armstrong Foundation Downtown Criterium" in his hometown, Austin, Texas. Its new and invigorated objectives, together with the adequate training led him to achieve positive results: ends in the top five at the Spanish Vuelta and the subsequent World Championship.

In 1999 the goal is important and precise: the Tour de France, the world's most important race for image and Blazon. The prologue of the Tour, Lance in the eyes of the world is already a double winner, for defeating cancer and to be back among the biggest names in world cycling. But appear in public for him is not enough. He won the prologue and won the Tour in an athletic undertaking involving a blend of power, determination, aggressiveness and strategy team. The circumstances and history moved the entire sporting world: Lance Armstrong is an international hero.

Lance doesn't stop. Until 2003 adds consecutively to his list another four titles at the Tour de France (before he would only Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain), receives numerous awards from all over the world, and especially becomes a living symbol of hope and inspiration.

In 2004 the name of Lance Armstrong falls in cycling legend even more than it was already winning Champs Elysees its sixth-consecutive yellow Jersey.

Then, in 2005 still: dedicates months of his athletic training only for the Tour. With a superb performance in the second-the first of the ' human '-will be the Italian Ivan Basso; Nancy will be able to declare: "I attacked and tried to win the race, but Armstrong has proven to be the best". Lance Armstrong won the last time trial and is Apotheosis: seventh. Eighty-three times in the yellow Jersey, twenty-two won stages within France. A true Titan.

At the end of August 2012 the Usada (United States Anti-Doping Agency) formalizes the decision to squalificarlo for life: Removes all sports results obtained from 1998 onwards, including seven Tour de France. Nike has cancels the contract of sponsorship and Armstrong was forced to announce his resignation as Chairman of the Livestrong Foundation, which he founded in 2003 for the fight against cancer.