Lance Armstrong: The Living Legend

Lance Armstrong the living legend in world of cycling was born on September 18 1971. His parents got separated when he was young and he was raised by his mother, Linda. He took active part in the sport events. He got the Iron Kids Triathlon and became a professional athlete while he was he was just 16. Initially he was interested in swimming and running events of triathlon competition but later he left them. He was enthralled by cycling competition and decided to make a career in it. By the time he was in high school he had cycling sponsors ready to sponsor him

Lance told to media that he was born to race bikes. This fact is evident from his school days naughty activities. He had such a craze for cycling that he would go out for short tours with his friends and many times he went so far that he had to ring up to his mother to pick him up. He got qualified to train with the U.S. Olympic developmental team in Colorado Springs, during his senior year of high school. The busy training schedule unfocused him totally from studies. He could have failed to qualify the exams of high school diploma, but during the final weeks of the school year he joined private tuitions which enabled Lance to graduate on time. On completion of graduation he turned his attention totally towards cycling.

In 1989 Lance made himself eligible for the junior world championships. Lance got many new things to learn from the Amateur competition. Not only was he rectified his cycling skills, but this experience exposed him to outside world. This played on his minds and brought a change in his behavior. He became brave and confident. By 1991 He became the U.S. National Amateur Champion and remained an amateur competitor through the 1992 Olympic Games.

He then participated in his first professional race in 1992 at Classico San Sebastian. He was not capable to perform to his standards. He finished the race 27 minutes after the winner. Anyone other at his place would have said a good bye to the game.
From this experience he learnt many new things and rectified all his past mistakes to make himself perfect in all sense. He got 10 titles in 1993 which also included winning the US PRO Championship. This recorded his first victory in the important Tour de France, and become the youngest road racing World Champion. This was a result of all shear determination and approach even after his failure in San Sebastian Olympic Games. He also marked success with great notice as he became the first from U.S. team, Lance's Team Motorola, to be ranked among the top five in the world.

Lance living with cancer:

After challenging in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Armstrong started to feel tired and weak and couldn't race as well as he use to. Doctors told Lance he had cancer in his testicles. His career would have finished that day were it not for the influence of his hard working mother, who remains his biggest hero even today. It was an inspiring experience that strengthened his resolves but set the tone for his career. He credits a lot to Bristol-Myers Squibb, who produced the drugs with which his cancer could be removed. Twenty years back, due to lack of drugs, 90 percent of the people who had this illness died.

Lance Armstrong made a comeback to cycling in 1998 and in 1999 he entered the exhausting Tour de France, a 2,274 mile race through the Alps. Armstrong capitalized his top position in the race from start to finish and won the event by nearly seven minutes. His astonishing comeback from cancer made him a world-wide celebrity and an inspiration for other people with cancer. He got the title of the Tour de France from 1999 to 2002 and won again in 2003 for a record-tying fifth consecutive title.
He has taken his success and transformed it into hope for all the individuals who face cancer every day. He has set up "The Lance Armstrong Foundation" to promote cancer research and awareness. He joined hands with Bristol-Myers Squibb to support early cancer detection; to reduce fear associated with cancer and to encourage a team approach to treatment.

He showed to world "whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." The moral we get from him is successful people don’t do great things; they only do small things in a great way.