Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong may not have grown up in the comfortable environment that most American bike racers enjoy, but he was given the freedom to be his best from early on. Armstrong maximized this opportunity and now at age 24 is America's top racer and the nation's best hope for taking home Olympic gold at the Games this August.

Although he has a lot of people to thank for his success, none deserves more thanks than his mother, Linda. Having given birth to him in a Dallas suburb when she was only 17, Linda recognized Lance's athletic ability and encouraged his participation in sports - everything from traditional team sports like football, baseball, and basketball to individual sports like swimming, running, and bicycling. At every step of the way his mother was there for him whether it was picking him up at a gas station miles away from home because he was dehydrated after an extended bike trip, working extra hours to support his needs, or running 10 kilometer road races with him starting when he was in the fifth grade. "She wanted [me] to become something, certainly. But she didn't care if it was the world's best surgeon, or the world's best bike racer." A mother who suffered through two quick marriages, Linda learned to rely on herself and instilled similar values in her son. "I've always marched to the beat of a different drum. I didn't raise him to go to college but to be his own person. Self-sufficient. You have to let them go."

And go he did. By the time he was in high school, Lance had combined his experience in running, swimming and bicycling to become the national sprint-course triathlon champion. Finding that his true love was for cycling, he concentrated on it and at the age of 18, moved to Austin, TX with his mother's blessing to travel with the U.S. amateur cycling team. He finished 14th in the road race at the 1992 Olympics then turned pro. In 1993, he became one of the youngest racers to win one of the Tour de France's 21 stages. He then followed this feat one month later by winning the World Championships in Oslo, Norway. And to top it all off that same year, he took home a million dollar prize for winning the Thrift Drug's "Triple Crown of Cycling." Although his accomplishments may have skyrocketed, his ego remained at ground level and he never forgot who helped to get him where he was. After winning the World Championship that year, he refused to appear in front of the king of Norway unless his mother could come as well. The king wisely agreed.

After his stellar first year as a professional, he slumped during his sophomore year. Although favored to repeat at the World Championships, he slipped in the final leg of the race and ended up with a disappointing seventh place finish. Nor did he fair any better at the Tour de France. For the second year in a row, he failed to complete the race and this time he didn't even win a stage.

But if 1994 was a lackluster year for Armstrong, 1995 was one to remember. "I rededicated myself to cycling. Last year I was sort of disenchanted. I was just a little burned out." In May, he won the Tour DuPont, this nation's most prestigious race, and in July as leader of Team Motorola, he again won a stage in the Tour de France and, for the first time, completed the race.

Lance Armstrong has been described as the successor to Greg Lemond, the greatest cyclist in American history, who retired in December, 1994. To be compared to the three time Tour de France winner is a significant compliment, but Armstrong has a ways to go if he is to match Lemond's accomplishments. Lemond is the only other American to have won the World Championship winning it at age 22. But unlike Armstrong who has time and again succumbed to the Europeans in the Tour de France, Lemond had, in addition, immediately gone on to become a dominant force in the Tour de France.

Armstrong is a fighter and he has the determination and ability to rise to the challenge. Said Jim Ochowicz, coach of the Motorola cycling team, "He knows what he wants and he knows how to do it, and he knows how to get the job done." With cycling open to pros for the first time in the 1996 Olympics, Armstrong has an added opportunity to strut his stuff to the world…in front of his home country. And as cycling fans line the streets in Atlanta to cheer him on, they may witness him snagging a medal away from the normally dominant Europeans. If he does, there is no doubt that in his mind at least, Lance will reserve a space for his mother Linda right beside him on the awards podium.