While much of the world was busy watching a chimney in Rome and debating the differences between black and white smoke, the man who is arguably America's greatest athlete in a generation quietly announced that as of July 24 he will give up the sport to spend more time with his family. Lance Armstrong is a man known as much for his efforts to support cancer research and dating pop icon Sheryl Crow as much as his unprecedented six consecutive Tour de France victories, a footnote in the sports culture of the country in which he was raised. Every July since 1999, though, he has managed to score a minor coup d'etat for his chosen profession of international-level road cycling as far as American media interest is concerned, as his lean figure is splashed across newspaper pages from Austin to Anchorage.
Saying Lance is a bike rider is like saying Jordan could play hoops or Ali won a fight or two. Understanding the man means understanding the sport, because in many ways he is the epitome of the craft he worked so tirelessly to perfect. Armstrong trains literally year-round for those 21 days in July comprising Le Tour, taking off at the most four or so consecutive days a year. A regimen of weight-lifting, eight-hour days on the bike and a diet that would make an anorexic blanch comprises Lance's year, with dozens of supporting staff monitoring his every heartbeat and calorie with the intent of delivering him healthy and hungry for victory to the starting line in France with the frightening consistency of a metronome. His rivals have called him a machine; even at the top of their form, there always seems to be a sizable difference between them and Lance, the so-called "patron" of the Tour. Clearly, this monk-like attention to detail during the year pays off when the race finishes on Paris' Champs-Elysees.
More intangible than the religious-like fervor with which he avoids ice cream and sleeping less than nine hours a night is his aura on the bike; watching him stand and seemingly dance on the pedals to climb a French col or take the wind out of opponents' attacks by bringing them back effortlessly is art in motion. Critics are fond of dismissing cycling as a fringe or an Olympic sport, but this ignores the cruel realities of Europe's third-favorite pastime (trailing only soccer and Formula One). A single stage of the Tour's daily 21 requires up to 10,000 calories, the output equivalent of running 2 1-2 back-to-back marathons. Riders deal with heat and cold, rain and snow, mangled equipment and violent crashes that break bones and bloody bodies. Lance's teammate Fabio Casartelli died in 1995 during that year's Tour after plummeting to his death off a cliff on narrow Alpine roads. Danger is ever present, even from the fans that line the roadsides so close they can touch their heroes.
It is said that to ride a single Tour takes years off your lifespan, and the riders, who commonly enter the event with body-fat percentages hovering around the ungodly figure of 3 percent or 4 percent, lose weight during the tour's three weeks. However, their loss is in bone mass from the calcium they lose in sweat on the blistering, sun-drenched tarmac of a French summer. Lance has done this six times in a row without a major stumble, every time defeating all other rivals from the 181 riders, without failing a single test for performance-enhancing drugs. The undefeated Armstrong perfected the art of doing what Americans do best - beating the other guy at his own game on his home turf, and the French hated him for doing it before being mesmerized by his dominance and panache. So thanks for being an inspiration to cancer survivors and weekend warriors on two wheels everywhere, Lance. You'll certainly be missed.