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Armstrong is gunning for history Posted: Friday July 12, 2002 11:50 AM
The feel of the event is vaguely reminiscent of the very old Saturday Night Live skit in which Weekend Update anchors would announce, week after week, "In Spain, Generalissimo Franco is still dead." The purpose of the joke was to lampoon mainstream news anchors who had, for weeks, announced that Franco was still alive, although barely. In this case, the non-news event is not the awful story of Ted Williams' remains, but rather the unfolding of the Tour de France. The news came Thursday that Lance Armstrong had finished 33 seconds behind the Stage 5 winner and thus remained in third place overall, seven seconds behind leader Gonzalez Galdeano. The Tour is, in fact, a transcendent sporting event, surely one of the greatest on the globe. But this summer, there is a sense that every day is the JV game. Cyclists from around the world fight for stage victories, while behind them Armstrong and his United States Postal Service teammates subtly defend a yellow jersey that Armstrong isn't even wearing yet. They avoid crashes, cover only the breakaways that need covering, and simply wait. They wait this summer for the third and final week of the Tour, when the mountains come. Normally riders hit the Alps in the middle of the race, but this year's Tour has been rejiggered to keep it suspenseful until the event draws closer to Paris. News flash: It ain't suspenseful. This is nobody's fault but Armstrong's. Column inches are wasted every day on describing the dominance of various athletes: Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, the Williams sisters. And so on. Armstrong is seldom mentioned, and surely this is because his sport is so far from the U.S. mainstream. That's fine. Armstrong is famous enough. He would tell you as much if you asked. He's famous for beating a potentially deadly cancer and he's famous everywhere in Europe for being one of the greatest cyclists in history. But he's not nearly finished. A year ago I met Armstrong in a small city in the Basque region of northern Spain. At the time, he and his USPS teammates were warming up for the 2001 Tour by competing in the Bicecleta Vasca, a five-day race in mountainous hills. Armstrong got to talking that day about history. He feigned ignorance of the three- and four-time Tour de France winners, but said this: "Only one man has won five in a row, I know that." That would be Miguel Indurain, the great Spaniard. Armstrong clearly has Indurain in his sights. He needs two more wins. Know this: There is no more dominant athlete on the world stage than Armstrong, and that includes Woods. Compressing the mountain stages into the final week of the Tour reduces Armstrong's margin for error, but it will only make him more brilliant. Keep reading the daily results. Lance Armstrong is still not wearing the yellow jersey. Somebody else won a stage. Somebody else leads overall. Days pass. Soon it will be Week 3. History beckons. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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