Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for an unprecedented sixth time to become the most successful athlete in the race’s 101-year history.
The Texan, who overcame cancer before his first Tour win in 1999, eclipsed Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, the five-time winners of the sport’s most prestigious race.
(http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=ascii&q=armstrong)
I almost think he should quit now while he’s on top. He doesn’t need anymore money. I’m sure he is quite well off from his endorsement deals. I heard I gave his team members each likem100k after they won as a thank you.
I don’t want another Jordan thing where a great athlete comes back to do just well and breaks a little off of his legend.
I also think if Lance knows he can, maybe he should go for a 7th. That way he didn’t just beat the 5 time record he would shatter it.
I saw a couple of stages during my vacation. The 15th and 16th. The 16th was the one on Alpe d’Huez. Man, that road is steep. I walked a bit over halfway up it and was pretty tired.
well, im just saying, he has nothing to prove, he´s the best, I know the case of some athletes that were TOO ambitious and lose some important contests…he can retire now as a true champion, imo
I’m actually getting a little tired with this guy. He’s getting a bit too much attention. From all the commercials, movie cameos, and news coverage…just too much. :sigh:
Lance is the man - no doubt about it. It’s remarkable just what he’s done - but to me it’s not what he’s done, but how he’s done it. Normal racing is like anything else, but it’s when he gets to the mountain stages where the course is the toughest that he’s best.
Then last year when the second place rider fell in a huge crash, Lance got off his bike and waited because he didn’t want to pad his lead like that - he wanted to race.
I dunno if he should retire. Should Bonds retire since he hit 600 home runs already? I say as long as he loves doing what he does, and as long as he can compete like he does there’s no reason he should retire. That’s just how I feel
Lance is not only one of the best athletes in the world he’s a good guy.
There are all kinds of stories about his good nature. Like mentioned above where he got off his bike. On one of the stages of this tour he was riding with one of the youngest riders in the tour and they were speeding up the hills. He asked the kid if he could keep that speed up, and the kid said yes. He told him “Well, go win this stage then.” He let the kid ride up ahead but 2 german riders caught up and overtook him. He rode back up along the kid and saw the the kid just didn’t have enough left to win the stage so lance turned on the heat and beat both those guys that still had the lead.
He’s also been very generous to his team as I’ve stated before. He’s a 6 time world champion and you don’t see him milking his fame for glory in the spotlight. Glory to him is riding into Paris wearing the yellow jersey.
P.S. Besides being spit on by some people during one of the stages, he has to deal with this stuff.
Interesting Article. Fromt that list I think Edwin Moses is the only guy that comes close. Team sports I think are different than individual and I think its impressive whensomeone can totally dominate one year like Spitz at the 72 olypics, but to dominate something over a period of 6 or more years is far more impressive.
He is a great athelete - probably one of the best, if not THE best cyclist out there right now. The attention he gets is well deserved. I am not sure how many of the other riders would react as calmly as he would if someone were calling him names, spitting on him, etc. Most would probably pull a fester on the rude spectator :D!