Monday, May 7, 2007

Lance Armstrong: In Spite of the Odds!!!


"I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at seventy-five miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my stud wife and ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire: the perfect contradiction to my once anticipated poignant early demise" so begins the autobiography of Lance Armstrong . Titled 'It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life', it gives an account of how he beat all odds to pursue his dream and went on to clinch the mother of all cycling races : Le Tour de France.

Brought up by a single mother, he had learnt life the hard way right from childhood...but she took care that he was not deprived of love and she lent a supporting hand in all that he did...which was one of the very few things that would help him to shape his own destiny. He started his athletic sojourn when he was only 12 as a tri-athlete (running, swimming and cycling) ,and in no time became the talk of the town. He was full of energy and at first he was a rebel who always shot out from the crowd even when he was miles away from the finish line and used to end up exhausted and barely able to finish the race. But he was learning..and as his fortune would have it, he was crowned champion at 18 and 19..a prologue of what he was to become, years down the line. History was being made..as he became the winner of the triple crown of racing , a feat achieved by no man till then and was rewarded $1 million for the same. He was enjoying his victories in the sport...and then one fine day fate played it's dirty trick on him. He was diagnosed with stage-3 testicular cancer. ..and it was a late diagnosis. Worse still, it had spread to his lungs, abdomen and even the Brain.

At first he was afraid that he would not be able to resume his career...but now he realized it was his life that was at stake. And when you see death face-to-face , there is not much that you would wish for, except getting through alive. All other things become secondary, no matter how much importance they had earlier. After a successful brain surgery he was admitted to the impasse of chemo cycles. Adding to it was the special treatment he was undergoing, so that if he were to come out alive..he could possibly resume his career. But the question of life and death loomed large. The chemo was just as bad as the cancer itself, if not worse. The poisons that were pumped into his blood day and night made life miserable for him...they were their taking toll on him. He lost his hair, became emaciated, his body became frail and he was down to nothing but a bunch of bones, the last nail in the coffin was his team ditching him He was not one to give in so easily, and fight he did...one which very few of this whole race could emulate, and it is that which distinguishes the greats from the ordinary....and later he would deem cancer as 'the best thing' that had happened to him.

He underwent four such cycles - as different from the usual count of three administered to the most severe of patients - a week or two in between each. But he did try his luck on training , only to have nearly fatal accidents on quite a few occasions. After all ...the poisons did the job and he was recuperating from the illness. The disease had taken toll on him physically and emotionally. Nothing would better exemplify it than the fact that he pulled off the road on a cold and bitter race in Paris, which incidentally was his first race after the cancer. He decided to call it quits, but a formal announcement was delayed until he ran the race for his own Lance Armstrong Foundation, thanks to his close friend and coach Chris Carmichael. He was asked to go back to the US ,where he would rediscover his passion for the sport and the courage to folow his dreams. What should have been his last race turned out to be a new beginning in his career, yes he won the race for his foundation on home turf, and his winning streak continued with several other races as well.

It was the year 1999, and with the high morale and confidence gained from his fight against the disease and the victories in cycling, he set his eyes on the most coveted Tour de France. He cut down on as many races as he could and underwent a gruelling practice session for months, come rain or shine, so that he could sport that Yellow Jersey in Paris. The tour couldn't have started any better for him; he grabbed the yellow jersey in the first time trial itself. From then on, there was no turning back . His never-say-die attitude prevailed and he was on top of the world when he finished the winner in Paris. That was just the beginning of a new era in cycling. An era that saw one man clinch the tour seven times in a row, a man who showed the world how much mankind is possible of stretching the limits.

Thomas Alva Edison once remarked, "Many of life's failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up". True indeed. If not for the fight he had put up, would have lost one legend, who has become an inspiration for people from all walks of life, be it cancer patients , athletes or anybody for that matter who believes that every failure has a lesson in it, and that they are nothing but the stepping stones to glory....with this I rest my case