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Lance Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist who has won the Tour de France for seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005. Here are 50 interesting facts about Armstrong:
- Lance Armstrong is the only professional cyclist to have won 7 consecutive Tour De France titles from 1999 to 2005. Later his medals were disqualified due to doping charges.
- He was born as Lance Edward Gunderson on 18 September 1971 in Texas. He was born to Linda Gayle and Eddie Charles Gunderson.
- His mother worked as a secretary and his father worked as a route manager for “The Dallas Morning News”. When Armstrong was 2 years old his parents for divorced.
- His father remarried and has two more children. His mother later married a wholesale salesman, Terry Keith Armstrong, who adopted Lance in 1974.
- He started his sporting career with swimming at the age of 12. He finished at #4 at the Texas State 1500 meter freestyle event.
- He took part at the junior triathlon, also known as Iron Kids Triathlon and won it at the age 13. From then on he made cycling his main sporting event.
- He was ranked as the best under-19 triathlon during the 1987-1988 Texas Triathlon. Second place was Chann McRae who became his teammate in 2002.
- During 1987 his total points as an amateur were much better than the 5 professionals who were ranked higher than him.
- He became national sprint-course triathlon champion in 1989 and 1990 when he was 18 and 19 respectively. He became a professional Triathlon only at 16.
- He joined Motorola Cycling Team in 1992 becoming a professional cyclist.
- He got his breakthrough victory in 1993 when he won the World Road Race Championship in Norway. Until then he had won 10 one-day events and stage races in 1993.
- He won a stage in Tour De France; his first win in that event in the Chalonssur-Marne to Verdun. When he retired after stage 12 he was #97.
- He also won Thrift Drug Triple Crown of Cycling which includes Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburg, K-Mart West Virginia Classic and the Corestates USPRO national championship in Philadelphia.
- Another cyclist has alleged that Armstrong bribed him to not compete in Corestates Road race.
- He came second in Classica De San Sebastian and Liege Bastogne –Liege, a great success for him since two years ago he finished last in the all-pro event.
- He won a stage Limoges in the Tour De France just 3 days after his teammate Fabio Casartelli died due to crash on the descent of Col De Portet D’Aspet on stage 15.
- During the 1996 Olympics he was placed at #6 on the time trial and #12 in the road race.
- He became the first American to win La Fleche Wallonne and won Tour DuPoint for second time.
- He joined French team Cofidis Cycling Team in August 1996 with a $2 million deal for 2 years. His teammates were Frankie Andreu and Laurent Madouas.
- He was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer in October 1996, just 2 months after joining a new team.
- The cancer had spread to his brain, lungs, and abdomen. During his first visit to urologist Jim Reeves he was coughing up blood and had a swollen testicle.
- During an interview later, Dr. Reeves said, Armstrong had no chance of survival during his orchiectomy to remove diseased testical. “We told Lance 20 to 50 % chance, mainly to give him hope.”
- He went to Indianapolis for cancer treatment at the Indiana University Medical Center for the next three Chemo cycles. He was given Vinblastine etoposide, ifosfamide and cisplatin to avoid lung toxicity.
- He was operated by Scott A. Shapiro, MD professor of Neurosurgery at Indiana University to remove brain lesions which were found out to contain extensive necrosis (premature death of cells in a living tissue).
- He was declared cancer free in February 1997. He received his last chemotherapy on 13 December 1996.
- The French cycling team, Cofidis cancelled his contract due to cancer. However he was offered $200000 by Subaru Montgomery of the US Postal Team.
- He maintained great rivalry with cyclist Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantani. Both of them were missing in the comeback race of Armstrong in 1999 Tour De France.
- His first Tour De France victory included victory in four stages and he beat Alex Zullu by 7 minutes 37 seconds. The four stages included Time Trial in Metz and also on stage 19, the prologue and an Alpine stage on stage 9.
- In 2000 Armstrong was challenged by Ullrich and Pantani which eventually ended in the victory of Armstrong by 6 minutes and 2 seconds.
- Armstrong repeatedly won against Ullrich in 2001 and 2003. The later did not participate in 2002 due to suspension.
- During the 2003 Tour De France, he was knocked down on the final ascent on stage 15 by a fan’s bag. Ullrich waited for Armstrong to catch up and compete with him, thus receiving fair-play honors.
- He also became the first cyclist to win 3 mountain stages continuously (stage 15, 16, 17) since Gino Bartali in 1948.
- He announced his retirement from professional cycling on 24 July 2005. However he expressed his return to the game in 2009.
- On January 2009 he participated in the UCI Toru Down Under starting from Adelaide. According to UCI rules a cyclist has to undergo 6 months of Anti-Doping program. However Armstrong was allowed with exception to the rule.
- He sustained a broken collarbone when he crashed in a rider pileup in Baltanas, Spain at the 2009 Vuetta a Castilla’s first stage.
- A controversy erupted between him and his team manager Johan Bruyneel and French Anti Doping Agency AFLD in 2009, when an official from AFLD visited Armstrong after a training ride, while he went to shower insisting that his manager had given the permission.
- It was recorded that Armstrong had an aerobic capacity of 83.8 mL/Kg/min, which was much higher than average person (40-50), but lower than other Tour De France winners such as Miguel Indurain with 88 and Greg LeMond with 92.5.
- He asked all his sponsors to collaborate and take advantage of combined resources. The team, AMD, Bontrager, Trek, Nike, Shimano, Oakley, Giro and Sram did collaborate for an array of products.
- He openly criticized others who were out spoken opponents of doping such as Paul Kimmage and Christophe Bassons. Teammates often described Bassons as the only rider without performance enhancing drugs.
- In the 1999 Tour De Frnace Armstrong rode up to Bossons and said “it is a mistake to speak out the way you does” and asked why you do that. When BAssons replied that he was thinking of the next generation of riders, Armstrong asked “Why don’t you leave then?”
- Armstrong also confirmed the news and even stated “His accusations aren’t good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he’s wrong and he would be better off going home.”
- Paul Kimmage had described Armstrong as “cancer in cycling”. As a journalist Kimmage asked him questions relating to his admiration for dopers provoking scathing reactions.
- After many public denials and many court cases he finally admitted to doping on January 2013 in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
- He owns a ranch in Texas Hill Country and houses in Austin, Texas and Aspen, Colorado.
- Until January 2013 he was a popular twitter uses with 4 million followers.
- He married Kristin Richard on 1 May 1998 and has 3 children with her. For pregnancy, she used his sperms that were banked before chemotherapy. They divorced in 2003.
- He started dating songwriter Sheryl Crow in 2003 and announced their engagement in September 2005. However they split in February 2006.
- He was reported to be dating Anna Hansen since July 2008 and announced that she was pregnant with couple’s first child. They met at his charity work and became close.
- It was believed that he could not father a child after chemotherapy for testicular cancer. However his fourth and fifth child was conceived naturally. He announced their arrival via twitter.
- He owns a coffee shop in Austin Texas named “Juan Pelota Café.” Juan means “One” and Pelota means “ball” referring to his testicular cancer.
