Armstrong Finishes Third and is Proud
Written by Nolan Thomas, Monday July 27 2009
Following a three and half year retirement from cycling, Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion finished in third place in this year’s race. Being in third place has never felt better to Armstrong. This represented a major victory for him given the fact of his three-year absence from cycling.
He has absolutely no disappointment and he expects to finish even better in next years Tour de France. With a new team behind him and a full year of preparation, expect big things from Armstrong in the 2010 race.
“It’s different,” Armstrong said about getting third. “I have no regrets. I wouldn’t change anything about my performance, the tactics, about the preparation. I’m happy with that. For me it’s a healthy result, healthy in the sense that in my life, in my previous career, if you would have said ‘You’re going to get third,’ I would have been on fire. So to now be third and to be proud of that, and my kids to be proud of that, the fans, and the people of
Armstrong had been written off by most of the cycling experts before the Tour de France race started three weeks ago. He faced some rough days on this year’s tour with the doubts of the cycling world. Armstrong kept the suspense going for fourteen days before he concluded that his aging legs would not drive him to an eighth Tour de France victory.
“In Verbier, I knew that it wasn’t going to happen,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong’s absence of acceleration while he was in the mountains and his failure in the
“Sure, we’ll change some things next year but looking back at this season we did everything we wanted to do, aside from the crash everything was pretty much on schedule,” said Armstrong, citing a spill he had back in March when he broke his collarbone.
Alberto Contador won the race and Armstrong was extremely impressed by Contador’s tour de force. He said that Contador was even better than Jan Ullrich, who was Armstrong’s biggest challenge during the years that he won the Tour de France seven times. “Absolutely,” he said. “Far better.”
Armstrong went as far as to say that if Contador had been 10 years older and had competed against Armstrong during his Tour reign, “it would have been damned close. Much closer than what you all saw back then.”
After his much pleasing third place finish this year, Armstrong expects to perform even better in 2010 with his new Radio Shack team. He feels that he has a good shot to even beat Contador, if all things go well.
“I’m staying positive,” Armstrong said. “My level will be a little better next year. If he has the same level next year that he has this year, difficult to beat him. That’s just a fact, a scientific fact.”
When Armstrong was asked about his future beyond 2010, Armstrong said he would still be involved in cycling and still be very much involved in the fight against cancer.
“I mean, the two passions in my life, aside from my family, are cycling and cancer,” the cancer survivor said. “And I’ve got to stay involved in both of those. My life needs those things. And, I think, those things need me.”
Armstrong stated that his third place finish this year could help to silence any of his doubters and critics.
Lance Armstrong is back in the cycling world, has no regrets, and he is not going to fade away into the sunset anytime soon.
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This tour was pretty exciting, and this is always a great story. It certainly did not hurt Armstrong that he was on such a strong team. It will be refreshing to see him back on a US team next year.