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To my mother, Dorothy,
for all the years of putting up with my cycling addiction,
and to my wife, Rivvy,
for her unwavering love and encouragement
I asked Eddy Merckx, the greatest cyclist of all time, if the Tour de France is the hardest race to win. No, he said, its the easiest race to win. When you are the strongest, the Tour is the easiest race to win because it is the hardest race of all.
I told you it wasnt even going to be close. You gotta know the intensity of this guy. Nobody has got his intensity. Nobody.
Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrongs personal coach
INTRODUCTION
Waiting for Destiny
DECEMBER 18, 2003: Austin, Texas.
Taped across the doorbell is a note, neatly written, all caps: PLEASE DO NOT RING. CHILDREN SLEEPING. A petite woman with ash-blonde hair answers my knock on the heavy oak door. Shes wearing an apron. Her only son, wearing navy sweats, stands barefoot behind her on the dark parquet floor. I just got up, explains five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. Hed been napping after a morning training ride, still jet-lagged from a weeklong trip to Europe. He was there with his girlfriend, the singer Sheryl Crow, attending her concerts in Paris, Brussels, and London, and fitting in his daily workouts while she rehearsed. On the way home he stopped in Washington, D. C. , to speak about cancer survival at a National Press Club luncheon. And tomorrow hes off to Seattle for some testing in a wind tunnel at the University of Washington. But today, right now, hes made time to talk
As we walk quietly into an open living area, Armstrong says that his two-year-old twin daughters, Grace and Isabelle, are asleep upstairs His four-year-old son Luke sits on his nannys lap in a deep armchair, reading a storybook. And Lances mother, Linda, is back in the kitchen. Im cooking chicken enchiladas, she calls out. The Texas thing. Its a thoroughly domestic, simple scene, in no way revealing that the man at the center of it all is one of the worlds greatest athletes.
Armstrong guides us into a narrow, high-ceilinged dining room thats also used as a den. He settles into a straight-backed leather chair and props his feet up on the table, stretching out his solid five-foot-ten-inch frame until it appears much longer. Hes relaxed and talkative, and when the questions begin, his answers flow freely. But when I ask him how important it is for him to win another Tour de Francea record-breaking sixthhe suddenly becomes silent.
After a long pause, Armstrongs square jaw loosens, and his thin upper lip hints at a proud grin. He then turns his head to the left and points out, with a sweep of his arm, four massive picture frames hanging along the far wall. A fifth one hangs next to the open doorway leading from the kitchen. Vacuum-sealed in each of the five bulky frames is a cyclists racing jerseythe special, shiny golden-yellow kind thats awarded to winners of the Tour de France. Each of his hanging jerseys remains unwashed, with the race numbers still attached, from the day he wore it into Paris at the end of a victorious Tour.
Armstrong remains silent, my question unanswered. Thats unusual, since hes rarely at a loss for words. In one of the first magazine interviews he ever gave as a young cyclist, he told me, I like the question-and-answer format the best. I like to see what people say. He was intimating that he doesnt have the patience to read all those words a writer puts between the quotes, words that might attempt to give some insight into a personality. Armstrong wants to figure that out himself, not from what the writer writes, but from what the person says. After all, he expects others to judge him by what he says. And he loves to talk.
Eventually, while staring at his five framed jerseys crowding the walls, Armstrong responds, talking so softly its as if hes whispering to himself. Cant place them much longer no more room maybe one or two can keep going around. He seems wistful, pensive, perhaps realizing that just as space on his den wall is running out, so too is his time as a potential Tour champion. Hell be 32 when he starts the 2004 race. By that age, the four other legendary racers who won five Tours had either retired from cycling or failed in their attempt to win a sixth. That thought doesnt deter Armstrong. Hes confident that he can become the Tours first six-time champion.
But just how important for him is it, making history by winning a sixth Tour de France, his sixth in a row? Can he possibly have the same hunger he had back in 1999, when he won his first?
Its very important, Armstrong replies, his voice louder, hitting his stride. Just as important as all the other ones. I have no real personal pressure to try and win because its never been done before, or for any reason like that. Its just important because on a basic level, its all that matters....
All that matters. Perhaps only a man as single-mindedly focused as Armstrong, a man who rose Lazarus-like from a cancer bed, a man whose friends say has more drive than anyone they know, would make such a statement. As if to justify his sweeping words, Armstrong adds that the Tour de France is the biggest bike race in the world, that it means everything to his team sponsor, the U. S. Postal Service, and that its the only bike race of which the American public is aware. So its huge, he says reverentially, adding that he has to be prepared, before concluding more urgently, Its important.
More important than all of the other things in his life? More important than staying close to his three children, developing a new love relationship, keeping on top of his cancer foundation work, fulfilling the media and commercial obligations of a national sports icon? I think I can juggle them all, he replies, looking as if he suddenly realizes the enormity of what he has to accomplish in the next six months before starting the Tour de France. Its hard. But if I lose the Tour because Im trying to manage my lifespending time in Europe and spending time here and seeing my kidsif I lose because of that, then you know what? It was worth it. He pauses to let that sink in, as much for his own benefit as for mine. But I think I can do it. Its a big challengeand I always like challenges.
More than anyone else, Armstrong understands the difficulty of that challenge: winning the Tour de France. He knows that both he and his team will have to be at the very top of their game to defend his title in July.
Winning the Tour is one of the supreme accomplishments in modern sports, and yet Armstrongs repeated victories and down-home demeanor have tended to trivialize an event that is so physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding that it borders on sadism. If a three-week bike race of this intensitycircumnavigating a whole countrywere proposed today, its advocates would probably be ridiculed. But the Tour was invented in flamboyant times, when bold projects were encouraged. After the first Tour was announced in January 1903, it was hailed as a colossal event by the French daily
