Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong was born September 18, 1971, in Plano, Texas. He was raised by his single mother, Linda, who was divorced twice. His mom taught him to always fight and never give up. This helped later when he fought cancer.

Lance grew up in the Dallas area and loved all sports. When he was 13, he was in is first triathlon, and in that same year won the U.S. Championship for his age. At 16 he became a professional tri-athlete. He liked cycling much more than swimming or running, and began to focus only on cycling. When he was a senior in High School, the US National Cycling Team asked Lance to work out with them.

When he was 20, he won the National Amateur Cycling Championship. In that same year, he won his first two major races, the First Union Grand Prix and the Thrift Drug Classic. The next year he made the US Olympic team that went to Barcelona, by finishing second at the US time trials. He was very disappointed when he only finished fourteenth at the Olympics, and finished last in his first professional race the San Sebastian Classic in Spain. He never gave up and trained even harder.

In 1993, Lance won the US cycling's Triple Crown, and the World Race Championships in Oslo, Norway. He kept getting better and better and by 1995, he won the very famous Tour Du Pont.

Armstrong's 1996 season was up and down. He was always tired and had bad bronchitis. He finished only 12th at the Atlanta Olympics in the cycling Road Race. In October of 1996, Lance was got the terrible news that he had testicular cancer, which had spread to his brain and lungs. Doctors only gave him a 40% chance of living. He fought the cancer as hard as he could, and with surgery and chemotherapy, Lance was fully recovered by early 1997.

Lance wanted to show everyone that he could still be one of the best cyclists in the world, and started a very tough training program. As Lance started to get stronger, The US Postal Service became his sponsor paying him $200,000 a year. Armstrong returned to racing in 1998 and won several smaller races leading to the Tour de France. He surprised the world by crushing everyone to win the Tour de France with an all time record time.

Armstrong married Kristin Richard, in 1998. He met her working on the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She had their first baby in 1998, and they named him Luke. In July of 2001, Lance and Kristin announced that they were going to have twins, and in the same Year, Lance won another Tour de France.

After his fourth Tour de France win in a row, Armstrong was named Sports Illustrated's "Sportsman of the Year" in 2002. He was the first American to ever win