Lance Armstrong - Defeating Destiny

Lance Armstrong is one of the most recognizable stars in the world today. The world of cycling has not seen such total domination of the sport for a long time. But the real story lies in the fact that Lance is no longer considered to be only a "Magician on wheels." He has become a symbol for all those who want to achieve the impossible, for all those who aspire to defeat destiny. Even the most ardent betting man would tell you that the odds that the following sequence of events could take place are mind bogglingly rare. A fairly successful athlete contracts a rare form of cancer, this becomes life-threatening, the athlete fights his way to recovery, he starts competing again, and blows away the competition - from a fairly successful athlete to champion of the world.

Lance Armstrong's career began in Plano, Texas, where his mother Linda supported his competitive urges from the beginning. He turned professional before his seventeenth birthday. It gave him the opportunity to train with the U.S. Olympic cycling developmental team. The experience sealed his destiny as a bike racer. Once he was a full-fledged cyclist he quickly established a reputation for himself in the U.S. circuit and also went on to win a couple of stages in the mother of all cycling events - the Tour de France. He participated in the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics but could not make much of an impact. He joined the French based Cofidis racing team.

It was at this point that disaster struck in the form of advanced testicular cancer. The doctors gave him less than 50% of a chance to live. With the advice of specialists, he tried a course of treatment that involved an aggressive form of chemotherapy. This was a high reward, high risk strategy because it gave him the chance to return to cycling because it would not affect his lung capacity. He lost his place on the Cofidis team.

His comeback was a literal rising of the phoenix from the ashes. Lance was offered a place on the United States Postal Service team. There was a lot of media attention due to the fact that he was riding again, but no one considered him to be a challenger for the top spot. It all seemed justified when in one of the early season races of 1998, on a cold and miserable Paris-Nice race, he pulled to the side of the road and quit. Most people thought that this was the last time that Lance would competitively ride again. He took time off and went to Boone, North Carolina with longtime coach Chris Carmichael for a week of stress-free riding. The move seemed to have paid dividends when he did a Top five finish in the World Championships.

But the Tour de France still beckoned and he began to train obsessively for it. The Tour de France is considered to be the most grueling of all races with the mountain stages being the most difficult. In the next six years Lance came to be regarded as the king of the mountains. It was a stunning mixture of power, aggressiveness, and team strategy that netted him his first Tour de France victory. This catapulted him into the limelight internationally. But it did not end there; he went on to win it six astonishing times. All in contrasting styles. There were start to finish victories and there were the sweeter ones where he would trail behind the leader throughout the race but outgun the competition in the mountains. Today the entire U.S. Postal Service cycling races with the strategy that Lance has to win. A similar analogy can be drawn to Michael Schumacher of F1 minus the cancer.

He has won numerous sport related awards and is the founder of Lance Armstrong Foundation. It provides information and tools people need to battle cancer and live strong through education, advocacy, public health programs, and research grants. If Lance, the activist, achieves even a fraction of the success of that Lance the cyclist has, the world will be a better place.