Lance Armstrong

Lance Edward Armstrong was born September 18, 1971 in Plano, Texas. He was raised by his single mother Linda after his father left when he was two. He came up through triathlon and cycling, turning pro at 21 and winning the World Cycling Championship at 22 in 1993. He was a top-10 Tour de France contender in his early 20s.

In October 1996, at 25, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had already metastasized to his abdomen, lungs, and brain. He underwent immediate orchiectomy, chemotherapy, and brain surgery. The treatment regime was aggressive specifically because his odds were so poor — by his own reporting, less than 50 percent. He went through it. He came out the other side. In 1997 he founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation (later Livestrong) and became one of the most visible cancer survivor advocates in the world. The yellow Livestrong wristband, launched in 2004, became a cultural object on its own — over 80 million were sold, raising over $500 million for cancer research and patient support during its peak years.

He returned to cycling. From 1999 through 2005 he won seven consecutive Tour de France titles, an unprecedented streak that turned him into the most famous cyclist in the world. He retired in 2005, came back in 2009, finished third at the Tour de France that year, and retired again in 2011. The investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency that culminated in October 2012 documented what USADA called “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” operated by Armstrong and his US Postal Service team across the seven-Tour winning era. He was stripped of all results dating to August 1998 and banned from competition for life. He confessed to Oprah Winfrey on prime time television in January 2013.

SGV’s editorial position on Armstrong is straightforward. The cancer survival is one of the most documented and meaningful comebacks in modern athletics — the diagnosis was real, the treatment was brutal, and the work he did for cancer patients in the years following raised more money for the disease than nearly any single individual has. The cycling titles are not his. We do not list them in his stats and we do not soften the doping story. He is included here under perseverance and endurance for the cancer arc, with the doping context honestly named, because both halves of the story are part of the lesson — including the part where a person who came back from stage IV cancer chose to compete the way he did once he was back. The full story is more useful than either half alone.