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Armstrong wins fifth straight Tour de France
By JEROME PUGMIRE Associated Press Writer
July 28, 2003
PARIS- Lance Armstrong was worried he might not win the Tour de France this year.
Concerned about his dwindling lead, he even had a hard time looking teammates in the eyes when they ate together.
»I was very scared,« Armstrong said in an interview on NBC's »Today« Monday, a day after his record-tying fifth straight victory in cycling's most prestigious race.
»For me to have to walk down to the dinner table when the gap was 2 minutes, and then went to 30 seconds, then was down to 15 seconds _ it was a sad sight,« he said.
»Personally, I didn't want to lose the event, but for their sake, I didn't want to walk down having lost the Tour de France after they've done so much for me.«
Armstrong didn't disappoint the other members of the U.S. Postal Service team.
He overcame crashes, illnesses, hard-charging rivals and some bad luck to sip champagne in the saddle Sunday as he coasted to the Champs-Elysees in Paris in the final stage.
But it was close. For Armstrong, used to winning the Tour by comfortable margins, his 61-second victory over Jan Ullrich just wasn't good enough.
»I love cycling, I love my job and I will be back,« Armstrong said. »In many ways, I'm coming back to hopefully return to a level that I had for the first four, because this year was not acceptable.«
His first Tour victory came in 1999, three years after surgery and chemotherapy for testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain. On Monday, he told a gathering of cancer specialists and survivors that winning the 23-day, 2,125-mile race was easy compared to the agony of fighting the disease.
»Drawing on that experience helps, and is perhaps one of the secrets of winning the Tour,« Armstrong said. »It is an honor to win the Tour as a cancer survivor.«
Each of his first four victories was by at least 6 minutes. But even after he took the overall lead for good with two weeks left, Armstrong didn't seal this title until the next-to-last day.
There was a series of problems. He had a stomach flu that was so bad before the Tour he nearly didn't make the flight to France. He was bruised in a crash on the second day. He lost 11 pounds through dehydration during a time trial in a heat wave and struggled up the Tour's most daunting climb, the 8,728 1/2-foot Col du Galibier, with a faulty back brake rubbing against the wheel.
»It takes a little bit out of you with the brake on,« Armstrong said. »Those sort of problems just kept happening.«
His rivals took notice, sensing that Armstrong was ready to fall.
The turning point came last Monday on a mist-shrouded 8.3-mile ascent to the Pyrenean ski station of Luz-Ardiden, one of the Tour's hardest climbs. Typically for this drama-packed Tour, Armstrong fell when a spectator's outstretched bag hooked his handlebars. But he got back up and rode past Ullrich, who in a gesture of sportsmanship waited for Armstrong to get back on his bike.
»I got up and my first thought was, oh no, I lost the Tour de France,« Armstrong said. »I took inventory, everything was there. You know the legs were turning OK and the bike seemed to be OK, and I said 'OK, I have to go now. If you want to win the Tour, you have to go now.'«
Ullrich came into the Tour from two knee operations, a ban for using recreational drugs, and the collapse of his Team Coast. He's already thinking about next year.
»I delivered one of my best races ever,« Ullrich said. "This time, I was very close to Armstrong. The next time, without C
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