THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2008
SPORTS
7B
CYCLING
As he tries for 8th Tour title, Armstrong looks inward
BY JIM LITKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The people around Lance Armstrong haven't seen him this fit or motivated in a long time.
Lance Armstrong will end his retirement and hopes to compete in the 2009 Tour de France, according to a cycling journal report. The 36-year-old seven-time Tour de France champion will compete in five road races with the Astana team in 2009, the cycling journal VeloNews reported on its Web site Monday, citing anonymous sources.
Good thing, too, since he will need plenty of both, plus thick skin, his maniacal work ethic and intimidating pain threshold, a topflight team, deep-pocketed sponsors, cooperation from the notoriously fickle Tour de France organizers — and a few thousand miles of luck besides.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
You could fill a sculpture park tomorrow with the statues of great athletes whose dreams of a comeback would have ended better if they'd only rolled over and gone back to sleep. But bet against Armstrong doing exactly what he said he would — returning to try and win what is arguably the world's toughest sporting event next summer at age 37, four years after riding off into the sunset — at your own risk.
Seven straight Tour titles attest to Armstrong's fear of failure eloquently enough. But even as those accomplishments piled up, the details of how that fear was burned, literally, into his bone marrow during a 1996 battle against testicular cancer kept slipping farther and farther down the page. He was on top of the world for so long that sometimes the rest of us forgot how he got there.
This wouldn't mark the first time Armstrong has beaten long odds. One thing I know for certain after covering him for almost 10 years is this: The man is relentless.
Not Armstrong.
This is a guy, after all, who still wears his hair close-cropped to remember the hell that was chemotherapy, but just long enough to cover two horseshoe-sized indentations in his head that his surgeons carved as pathways to get at the cancer that had spread to his brain.
That story was, is and always will be front and center with him, something he reminded us of at the end of an exclusive and very revealing interview posted Tuesday on Vanity Fair's Web site.
Armstrong recalled being on hand last fall to watch the Texas legislature debate a measure called Proposition 15, which would provide $3 billion for cancer prevention and research in the state.
As chances for the bill's passage waxed and waned during a chaotic session, Armstrong said his friend Doug Ulman leaned over at one
point and whispered, "Man, this is fun!"
The reply was vintage Armstrong.
"And I said, 'Doug, it is only fun if we win.' And for me, I think a lot of that stems from just the illness and the diagnosis and the process there. Because failure there is death. Loss there is death. And victory is living. Which people just assume they're going to do. I mean, most people — cancer survivors — don't always assume that. But I was scared. You know, from that point on, I associated loss with death. And so I didn't. It was burned in my mind forever.
"I don't like to lose in anything," Armstrong said, finally. "Anything."
The comeback could be a win for a lot of people: cancer patients and their families, survivors and researchers, almost everybody with a stake in cycling and every sponsor that has a piece of Armstrong.
After enrolling in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's out-of-competition testing pool, he gets another chance to try and shake the rumors of doping that have hounded him since the closing week of the first of his seven Tour wins.
"We're going to be completely transparent and open with the press," he told Vanity Fair, vowing to put himself through the one of the most rigorous drug-testing regimens ever devised. "This is for the world to see."
As I said, the man is relentless, and Armstrong was clearly unhappy with the images of him being flashed around that very same world; serial dater, lax parent, political dabber. He was tired of hearing his sport trashed — and by extension, his achievements diminished — and frustrated by the roadblocks erected in his path in the fight against cancer.
"If cancer got a whole new name tomorrow and a whole new set of fears associated with it and it had the toll that it does, we would act," he told the magazine. "Look at all those other things they act
upon. Forget war and terror. Look at SARS. Remember the bird flu? Remember all that stuff? AIDS, people freaked. Those were new, scary issues that all of a sudden were going to come jump into your house and ruin your life"
So Armstrong did what has always made him feel better, returning to the one place he could always dictate terms. He climbed back on his bike.
MLB
Cards struggle with injured players
BY R.B. FALLSTROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS — Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus will miss at least a handful of games after undergoing an MRI exam Wednesday and getting a second cortisone injection for a strained right shoulder.
The Cardinals were three players short for their match-up with the Chicago Cubs. Outfielder Rick Ankiel was resting his lingering abdominal injury, and right-hander Kyle Lohse decided to drop his appeal of a five-game suspension for an incident against the Reds.
The hits to a trio of frontline players came a day after the Cardinals shaved their deficit in the NL wild card to $3\frac{1}{2}$ games behind Milwaukee.
Ankiel was the starting center fielder before he got hurt in late July. He saw limited duty in 14 games before returning to the everyday lineup in left field to minimize the risk of aggravating the injury.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Manager Tony La Russa wasn't sure how much Ankiel, batting. 264 with 25 homers and 71 RBIs in his first full year as a starting position player, would play the rest of the season.
St. Louis Cardinals' Troy Glaus walks back to the dugout after striking out to end the third inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday in St. Louis. Ghaus strained his right shoulder, and was taken out of the game.
"We're definitely going to back him off," La Russa said. "He's going to get examined and we'll decide what's best."
Lohse's suspension for throwing high and tight to pitcher Edinson Volquez in the fifth inning Aug. 17, a half-inning after he saw the same type of pitching, won't be felt until Sunday, his next scheduled turn in the rotation.
Missouri race ends 3rd stage Vande Velde holds slim lead
CYCLING
He worked 5 1-3 innings and gave up three runs in Tuesday's 4-3 victory over the Cubs.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
When the penalty was announced, including a fine, Lohse said the ruling was "pretty weak."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BRANSON, Mo. — Christian Vande Velde won the time trial Wednesday to take the overall lead after the third stage of the Tour of Missouri.
Vande Velde, riding for Garmin- Chipotle, completed the hilly, 18-mile course through Branson in windy conditions in 39 minutes. 51 seconds.
Australia's Michael Rogers (Team Columbia), a three-time world time trial champion, was second in 40:12, and Canada's Svein Tuft (Symmetric) followed in 40:24.
George Hincapie (Team Columbia), the defending race winner, moved into the fourth position, 1.03 seconds back with a fourth-place finish.
Vande Velde, the Boulder, Colo,
rider who began the stage 24th, 20
seconds behind Mark Cavendish,
took a 21-second margin over
Rogers. Tuft was third, 44 seconds
back.
"I was surprised," said Vande Velde, who averaged 27.13 mph. "I wasn't feeling 100 percent confident, particularly the past two weeks after the national championships. I just don't think I've been riding that well."
Christian Vande Velde, of Boulder, Colo., reacts as he crosses the finish line in the individual time trial stage of the Tour of Missouri cycling race in Branson, Mo., Wednesday. Vande Velde won Wednesday's stage, the third of seven.
Footwear
Rogers, who crashed out of the 2007 Tour de France while riding in the race lead, has endured a series of viruses.
"I'm getting back to where I was," said Rogers. "The time trial is one of the reasons I came to this race. It was the hardest time trial I've had this year. Second to
the riders in this field, including Christian, is certainly a positive"
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Cavendish, a sprinting specialist, finished 41st in the stage. 4:09 behind the winner. He fell to 36th position, 3:49 behind.
On Thursday, the riders will face a 105-mile trip from Lebanon to Rolla. The event will finish with a 75-mile circuit race in St. Louis.
Don's Auto: Tips for Better Gas Mileage
1
Change your air filter regularly
2 Slow down!