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Do You Know Who The Greatest Bicyclist Ever, Is

By: Becky Day

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Professional bicyclist Lance Armstrong, born on September 18, 1971, as Lance Edward Gunderson. He is definitely one of the most amazing athletes ever born. At the age of 12 years old, he started out his career by winning in an adult competition. He seriously started out as a tri-athlete. He was ranked as number 1 in 1987 and 1988 in the Tri-Fred. He earned a status of professional tri-athlete. Then in 1989 and 1990 he won the triathlon championship. He concluded the race at the 14th position in the 1992 Summer Olympics. In the World Road Race, he became the youngest rider to win the championship.

In 1999, Lance Armstrong proceeded to win the utmost prestigious race, Tour de France and subsequently went on to earn it 7 years in a row, from 1999 to 2005 which broke the prior record set by Miguel Indurian, that won the race five times in a row. 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, gave him the Sports Personality award of the Year known 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 7 times consecutively because all his focus was solely on the Tour de France and he would not be involved in any other competition, which provided him the chance to train for one hundred and eighty days at a time. During that period former cyclist Chris Carmichael, who was also his coach, trained him.

Armstrong stated he was able to maintain higher cadence in a lesser gear when compared to past champions who put to use a high gear and incredible strength. High pedal rotation leads to less leg muscles fatigue in comparison to lower cadence, which leads to severe leg muscle contractions. He furthermore had a high aerobic threshold. His higher pedaling cadence was caused by his low lactate level, that has been his most unusual quality.

Though Armstrongs team was not very strong to begin with in the Tour de France, the later victories he accomplished, increased the team level. Armstrong is additionally a part of the US Postal Service bicycling team. But unfortunately his US postal service team members were not a match to his caliber and frequently he was isolated. He strengthened this team by making sponsors and equipment suppliers interact. He did this by obtaining bicycle parts which at that time, were being crafted by different companies. Because they were separate companies, they never interacted with one another. Armstrong with able to get the sponsors and the bicycle part suppliers to work together so they could take full benefit of all the sources available. Lance Armstrong made such an impact that still today, there are many companies in the cycling circuit that have followed this strategy.

Lance Armstrong has also 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 3rd stage and the cancer had spread to his brain, lungs and his abdomen. His chances of survival were only at 3 percent. Attributed to the extremely low survival rate, he elected for a dangerous chemotherapy treatment so he could resume his career. His unbelievably courageous recovery and his astonishing success motivated him to set the foundation for his charity, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, established in 1997. He went back to bicycling after just three years and won, the first of seven, Tour de France titles by triumphing over Alex Zulle by seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

There have been people over the years, who doubt his achievements and state that Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs to win in certain cases. None 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 focused on his charity foundation and has taken part in numerous marathons.

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