Cyclingnews picks the Texan's best ever quotes
From his Tour-stage-winning ride that paid tribute to Fabio Casartelli in 1995 to his second retirement from the sport after the 2010 Tour de France, this is Lance Armstrong in his own words.
39 “This was for Fabio Casartelli. I was very, very bad in the last bit, but I kept thinking of him. I did it for one person.” After winning the 1995 Tour stage into Limoges three days after the death of his Motorola team-mate.
38 “I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.”
Lance Armstrong
37 “I want all of you to know that I intend to beat this disease. And further, I intend to ride again as a professional cyclist.”
During a press conference to reveal that he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer on 8 October 1996
36 “I am happy that I have proven that I am now over my illness. I did not ride the 1998 Tour with all the problems. It is true that cycling is going through problems at present. But it is a problem like those that exist in other areas of life.”
In the press conference after winning the 1999 Tour de France prologue
35 "I hope it sends out a fantastic message to all survivors around the world. We can return to what we were before – and even better.”
In Paris after taking his first Tour title in 1999
34 “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”
It’s Not About the Bike, published May 2000
33 “His accusations aren’t good for cycling, for his team, for me, for anybody. If he thinks cycling works like that, he’s wrong and he would be better off going home.”
Responding to Christophe Bassons’ criticism of the doping culture in cycling during the 2000 Tour
32 “But, umm, Elefantino, it's unfortunate that he is showing his true colors, because I like Marco. And I have a lot of respect for him. I felt like it was a gift (to Pantani) on the Ventoux. And I also feel like it was a mistake to give the gift. He's a great rider, he's a great champion and he's a great climber. But he wasn't the best man on Ventoux. And anybody that watched the race will know it. But in hindsight, over the last few days, his actions and words have been disappointing to me because I thought he had more class than that."
After Marco Pantani had won the Mont Ventoux stage at the 2000 Tour
©AFP Photo
31 “This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it, study it, tweak it; listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”
Nike commercial, 2001
30 “It was a coup de poker – it was all a bluff to make Telekom work today. It worked perfect for us. We didn't know that Telekom was going to ride hard tempo almost from the beginning of the stage. So the plan [to bluff] was born on the road, since we know that they are all watching on TV anyway, so we decided to bluff.”
Speaking on at Alpe d’Huez in 2001 after pretending he was struggling before launching a winning attack past Telekom’s Jan Ullrich
©AFP Photo
29 “Six years ago was the first time I did it and when I rode by [Fabio Casartelli’s memorial] I told myself I wanted to win for him today.”
After victory in 2002 on the Pla d’Adet stage that crossed the Portet d’Aspet, where his Motorola team-mate Fabio Casartelli died in 1995
28 “A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. If you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing. But if I had a dollar for every time somebody yelled, 'dopé, dopé,' I'd be a rich man… But those are the things that I have to live with, and I'm not here to be friends with a bunch of people who stand on the side of the road that have had too much to drink, and want to yell 'dopé!' I don't have to care. Nor will I care in three or four years when I'm sitting on the beach with my kids, having a cold beer. But don't come to the bike race in order to stand around and yell at cyclists. Stay at home.”
After being booed on Mont Ventoux in the 2002 Tour
27 “There’s no doubt that Triki [Beltrán] went too hard at the base of the climb, but he’s new to the team and I guess the system isn’t clear enough yet. A fast tempo is a good thing but that tempo was supersonic and that’s not a good thing. We’ll talk about that tonight and it won’t happen again.”
Talking about the pace set by teammate Manuel Beltrán as the yellow jersey group at the 2003 Tour reached the bottom of Alpe d’Huez and Armstrong subsequently struggled to keep his rivals in check
26 “It was the scare of my life... In a moment like that, it’s only a reflex of survival. When you see something happening like that the first thing you do is ask yourself ‘OK, where do I go?’ I couldn’t go right and I couldn’t go over him, so I could only go left and into the field. Then I just kept going and got back on the road as quickly as I could. When I was riding through the field I felt like a farmer plowing.”
After riding across a field in order to avoid the falling Joseba Beloki on the road into Gap in 2003
25 “Perhaps I didn’t drink enough before the stage or this morning. I ran out of water, which is about as deep as I can explain it.”
After suffering a major defeat to Jan Ullrich in the furnace-like Cap Découverte time trial in the incident-packed 2003 Tour de France
24 “This was my hardest win – we dodged some bullets. It was a rough year at the Tour and I don’t plan to make the same mistakes twice. But my win feels more satisfying, more than the others because of that. The crashes and near-crashes take it out of you.”
In Paris at the end of the 2003 Tour
23 “In retrospect, I’m not so sure that he did wait. In replays, he seems to be riding race tempo. He didn’t attack, but he didn’t wait either.”
Reflecting on Ullrich’s response when Armstrong and Iban Mayo crashed on the ascent to Luz Ardiden in Every Second Counts, published in October 2003
22 “If there was a god, I’d still have both nuts.”
ET magazine, 2004
21 “That motivates me more than anything. It’s very simple. It certainly doesn't work against me. I don’t want to make it worse than it was. This is big-time sport… The people are excited and emotional and they have their guy but that doesn’t take away from my love of the game, with my desire to win. In fact, as I said, I think it puts a little fuel on the fire.”
After winning the Alpe d’Huez mountain time trial in 2004 in front of a frenzied crowd
20 “Run like you stole something, Floyd.”
Urging on team-mate Floyd Landis before the descent into Le Grand Bornand in 2004.
©AFP Photo
19 “No gifts, no gifts this year. I’ve given gifts in the Tour de France and very rarely has it ever come back to help me. And this is the biggest bike race in the world and it means more than any bike race in the world. And I wanna win. No gifts.”
After sprinting to chase down and beat T-Mobile rival Andreas Klöden at Le Grand Bornand in 2004
18 “A guy like Simeoni, all he wants to do is to destroy cycling... and for me, that’s not correct. He’s the kind of rider who attacks the peloton and cycling in general.”
Explaining his pursuit of Filippo Simeoni after the Italian got into a break during the last week of the 2004 Tour
17 “I don’t know what I’ll do next summer. I suspect I’ll be here. It’s too big of a race. My only hesitance is I think the people and the event perhaps need a change, new faces, a new winner. If I’m here at the Tour de France, I race to win. We’ll see..."
After winning his sixth consecutive Tour in 2004
16 “What he did in 1989 and 1990 was phenomenal. But Greg’s not even worth talking about today. And I don’t need to hear from him – he’d only shove his foot farther down his mouth.”
On Greg LeMond, Playboy, June 2005
15 “Through my illness I learned rejection. I was written off. That was the moment I thought, ‘Okay, game on. No prisoners. Everybody's going down.’”
Playboy, June 2005
14 “Two things scare me. The first is getting hurt. But that's not nearly as scary as the second, which is losing.”
Playboy, June 2005
13 “Finally, the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics: I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets — this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So Vive le Tour forever!”
On the Champs Elysées podium in 2005 having wrapped up a seventh Tour win and confirmed his retirement
12 “The biggest problem with politics or running for the governor is that it would mimic exactly what I've done: a ton of stress and a ton of time away from my kids. Why would I want to go from pro cycling, which is stressful and a lot of time away, straight into politics?"
In 2005 after retiring following his 7th straight Tour win
11 “If you consider my situation: a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.”
Responding to L’Equipe’s accusations that he used EPO during the 1999 Tour on the Larry King Show in August 2005
10 “I need to run for one office, the presidency of the Cancer Fighters’ Union of the World.”
Sports Illustrated interview in 2006
9 “I am happy to announce that after talking with my children, my family and my closest friends, I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden.”
In a statement released by the Lance Armstrong Foundation in September 2008
8 “I’m here to fight this disease. You are not worth the chair that you’re sitting on with a statement like that with a disease that touches everybody around the world.”
Blasting Paul Kimmage at a press conference at the Tour of California in 2009 after The Sunday Times reporter had called Armstrong “the cancer in this sport” during a radio interview
7 “Seeing these comments from AC [Alberto Contador]. If I were him I’d drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn't win.”
Twitter post 27 July 2009
©Roberto Bettini
6 “Congrats to Contador. He showed that, as most people would agree, he is the best bike rider in the world right now. Hats off to him.”
In a RadioShack team video after Contador’s victory at the Tour of the Algarve in February 2010
5 “It’s our word against his word. I like our word. We like our credibility. Floyd lost his credibility a long time ago.”
In May 2010, responding to Landis’s accusations of systematic doping at the US Postal team
4 “There are 3 guys here in the race that I raced against their dads too....”
Twitter posting while competing at the Tour of Switzerland in June 2010
3 “Sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re the nail. Today I was the nail.”
After puncturing and losing time during stage 3 of the 2010 Tour over the cobbles to Arenberg
2 “Do the American people feel like this is a good use of their tax dollars? That’s for them to decide. Like I said, as long as we have a legitimate and credible and fair investigation, we’d be happy to co-operate. But I’m not going to participate in any kind of witch hunt. I’ve done too many good things for too many people.”
Speaking to the New York Times on July 14 about the Jeff Novitzky lead investigation sparked by Landis’s accusations.
1 “This race has been good to me but I can’t lie, I'm ready to retire part two. I was just glad that three weeks of suffering is over and I get to go home. I don't have to stress about racing every day. I have a lot of happiness, a lot of good memories, just a lot of good times here.”
Confirming the 2010 Tour de France was after the fin
al stage in Paris.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lance-armstrong-a-career-in-39-quotes
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