Lance Edward Armstrong (b.1971,) born Lance Edward Gunderson, is a former American professional racing cyclist. He won seven Tour de France titles 1999–2005, but was later stripped of all his titles after an inquiry revealed that he was the key figure in a wide-ranging doping conspiracy.
Born in Plano, Texas, Armstrong was an endurance events prodigy and cycling rising star who survived testicular cancer and returned to sports stronger than before, winning three more Tours de France.
Armstrong started the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Race for the Roses charity bike ride, which raise money for cancer research and assistance to survivors. He published the memoirs It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (2000) and every Second Counts (2003.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Lance Armstrong
Anything’s possible. You can be told you have a 90% chance or a 50% chance or a 1% chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.
—Lance Armstrong
At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I’d been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn’t say, But you were never a Christian, so you’re going the other way from heaven. If so, I was going to reply, You know what? You’re right. Fine.
—Lance Armstrong
Topics: Christianity
The truth is, if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father.
—Lance Armstrong
Topics: Cancer
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
—Lance Armstrong
Topics: Pain
Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things—whether health or a car or an old sense of self—has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.
—Lance Armstrong
Topics: Cancer
For the level of condition that I have now, that was without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done. I never felt a point where I hit the wall. It was really a gradual progression of fatigue and soreness.
—Lance Armstrong
If you ever get a second chance in life for something, you’ve got to go all the way.
—Lance Armstrong
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