Do You Know Who The Greatest Bicyclist Ever, Is Print
By Becky Day

 Pro bicyclist Lance Armstrong, born on September 18, 1971, as Lance Edward Gunderson. He is without a doubt one of the most amazing athletes ever born. At the age of twelve years old, he started his career by winning in an adult competition. He seriously started off as a tri-athlete. He was ranked as number 1 in 1987 and 1988 in the Tri-Fred. He attained a status of professional tri-athlete. Then in 1989 and 1990 he won the triathlon championship. He completed the race at the 14th position in the 1992 Summer Olympics. At the World Road Race, he became the youngest rider to win the championship.

In 1999, Lance Armstrong proceeded to win the highest prestigious race, Tour de France and then went on to earn it seven years consecutively, from 1999 to 2005 which in turn broke the former record set by Miguel Indurian, who won the race 5 times consecutively. In 1999 ABC television network titled him the Wide World Sports Athlete of the Year. In 2002, he was termed the Wide World Sports Athlete by Sports Illustrated magazine. For four consecutive years, from 2002-2005 he was named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year. In 2003, the BBC, awarded him the Sports Personality award of the Year recognised as the Overseas Personality Award.

Lance Armstrong has supported his victories by revealing that he had trained for many months in Spain. He was able to win the Tour de France seven times consecutively because all his focus was only on the Tour de France and he would not take part in any other competition, which provided him the opportunity to train for one hundred and eighty days at a stretch. For the duration of that period former cyclist Chris Carmichael, who was also his coach, trained him.

Armstrong reported he was able to retain increased cadence in a lesser gear when compared to past champions who utilized a high gear and brute strength. High cadence leads to less leg muscles stress in comparison to lower pedal rotation, which in turn leads to severe leg muscle contractions. He furthermore had a substantial aerobic threshold. His high pedaling cadence was caused by his low lactate level, which was his most unique quality.

Though Armstrongs team was not that strong to begin with in the Tour de France, the later wins he accomplished, raised the team level. Armstrong is furthermore a part of the US Postal Service bicycling team. But regrettably his US postal service team members were not a match to his caliber and often he was isolated. He strengthened this team by making sponsors and equipment suppliers communicate. He did this by obtaining bicycle parts which during the time, were being developed by different companies. Since they were separate companies, they never interacted with one another. Armstrong with able to get the sponsors and the bicycle part suppliers to work jointly so they could take full benefit of all the resources available. Lance Armstrong developed such an impact that still today, there are countless companies in the cycling circuit that have adopted this approach.

Lance Armstrong has saddly had more than his fair share of life's problems. In 1996, He underwent brain and testicular surgery. Testicular cancer had been detected in the third stage and the cancer had spread to his brain, lungs and his abdomen. His chances of survival were only at 3 percent. Due to the exceptionally low survival rate, he opted for a dangerous chemotherapy treatment so he could resume his career. His extremely courageous recovery and his astonishing success motivated him to lay the foundation for his charity, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, established in 1997. He went back to cycling after just three years and won, the first of seven, Tour de France titles by triumphing over Alex Zulle by 7 minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

There were people over the years, who doubt his achievements and claim that Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs to win in certain cases. Not one of these allegations could ever be verified. There has never ever been any evidence brought forth at all.

Did you know Lance Armstrong has even appeared in the movies? You might have seen him in the movie Dodgeball, or perhaps in 2004 the movie called A True Underdog Story, or maybe You, Me and Dupree, made in 2006.

Lance Armstrong took his retirement at the closing of the 2005 Tour de France racing event, on July 24, 2005. After retiring, he has been concentrated on his charity foundation and has taken part in several marathons.

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