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Armstrong settles for bronze as a new queen emerges
SYDNEY, Oct 1 (AFP) - In the leadup to these Olympic Games, two-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong made no bones about why he was coming to Sydney. The 29-year-old Texan had survived cancer and twice worn the Tour's yellow jersey onto the Champs Elysees, but he had one thing left to do - win Olympic gold. "The only reason to come here is to win," he told a news conference soon after his arrival. The storybook ending didn't come to fruition in Sydney for Lance Armstrong - he will go home to Texas with a bronze medal around his neck. But together with the rise of recovered anorexic Leontien van Moorsel to the title of the new queen of women's cycling, Armstrong's presence in Sydney made triumphing over the Grim Reaper the overwhelming theme of cycling at the 2000 Olympics. Germany's Jan Ullrich left with a gold in the road race and a silver in Saturday's time trial while Russia's Vyacheslav Ekimov came from deep in the field to take gold in the gruelling race against the clock. However, Lance Armstrong had to settle for 13th place in the road race and a bronze medal in the time trial behind professional teammate Ekimov and professional archrival Ullrich that seemed clearly to frustrate him. "I did everything I could," he said afterwards. "I have no excuses - I gave everything and I got third place. The two riders in front of me were faster and stronger." Even worse perhaps, Armstrong, who is leaving his third Olympics without having taken gold, also seemed to come to the realisation he may never win Olympic gold as he discussed his race with reporters. In four years he would be 33 and Ekimov had won the time trial in Sydney at 34. "Maybe that's the secret," he said. But then he added: "I have a feeling these will be my last Olympics. ... just a feeling." The Sydney Olympics will definitely be the last for van Moorsel, the Dutch cyclist who by winning three golds and a silver in Sydney became the most successful women's cyclist ever at a single Games. When the 2004 Athens Olympics roll around, van Moorsel told reporters after winning her last gold, she wants to have two babies in her arms and a cycling career definitely in her past. She has given herself two years more of cycling and wants to break the world record for the hour at some point in that time. But after that the 30-year-old wants to settle down and start a family. "If somebody would have said to me months ago that this would have happened I wouldn't have believed them," a bewildered van Moorsel told reporters after winning her final gold in the time trial Saturday. Besides the fact that by winning her three golds she became one of the only cyclists of any sex to have won three or more cycling golds since Marcus Hurley of the United States won four at the 1904 Games in St Louis, she came to Sydney having triumphed over anorexia and mental demons as well. Six years ago her anorexia led to a physical breakdown that kept her out of cycling for years as she struggled to overcome her illness and fight back into the ranks of the women's. She had already won two world championships before Sydney. But her fight back to win gold in the individual pursuit, the road race, and the women's time trial as well as a silver in the women's points race, put her triumph over her disease into a whole new realm. "I think there is a message to be given," van Moorsel told reporters. "You have to be motivated and the way back is very difficult. But it is possible.
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