seven
Yeehaw! After 3 weeks of pain, Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for the record breaking 7th time in a row. Sadly he also retired from the sport of professional cycling and we’ll never know if he could have won it an 8th time. Personally I think he was in such good form this year that he could have ridden another Tour to victory. However I’d rather see him retire on top of his sport, than risk the chance of failing because he wanted to win “just 1 more time”. I don’t think the millions of Lance Armstrong fans would be able to handle it if Lance does not finish first in the Tour, I know I’d be pretty bummed out!
As Phil Liggett would say, Lance has “stamped his authority on the Tour de France once and for all”. He has achieved everything he possibly could in the Tour, winning it an 8th time wouldn’t make any difference!
Finally however, fans of the Tour de France can look forward to a new man in yellow next year! A part of me would like to see Jan Ulrich at last win it for a 2nd time, but somehow I doubt if it’s gonna happen. Next year my money is on Ivan Basso, with Alexander Vinokourov, Michael Rasmussen and Jan Ulrich fighting it out for 2nd and 3rd and 4th place.
Damn, the Tour of 2005 is over, and I have to return to reality where it is impossible to cycle a distance of 3 400km in 21 days! It is, isn’t it?
Desigan wrote on July 25th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Lance is a legend…with an abnormally big heart. Have you read his book?…if not -check it out.