|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Easy rider Armstrong talks of surviving cancer
Lance Armstrong is making another run at a Tour de France title. But the 28-year-old defending champion has fought and survived a tougher race against time by overcoming his personal battle against cancer which was first diagnosed in 1996. Recently CNNSI.com's Laura Okmin spoke with Armstrong who was in Monte Carlo, Monaco near his home in Nice, France. Laura Okmin: Your life has changed so much as of late. Which do you view yourself as first now? A champion cyclist or cancer survivor? Lance Armstrong: Oh, that's an easy question. I absolutely view myself as a cancer survivor first and foremost. Cycling is something I do now, but in 10 years time I won't do this anymore and I won't be known as a cyclist and I won't be known as somebody that wins bike races. I'll be known as Lance Armstrong and hopefully for a long time to come, I'll be known as a cancer survivor. Okmin: You are promoting your new book called, "It's Not About the Bike." Something that really hit me reading it was that you said cancer was the best thing that ever happened to you. How? Armstrong: Well, that's a common question. I think the answer is in two parts. Physically, it was a good thing for me. I changed completely as an athlete. My body changed, my style on the bike changed. If you look at my weight. My body weight in the Tour de France this year, I'll be 20 pounds lighter that I was in 1996. That's significant weight when you're talking about going over the Alps and the Pyrenees and things like the Tour. But the biggest part and the most important part was the mental side of it. And the way I approach the sport now, the way I approach the bike now, my training, my diet, races. Psychologically it was a good thing for me to be so scared and so fearful, to be given another chance. Okmin: You talked about then how it affects your psychology of racing. But talk about that more personally. How did it affect you? How did you become a better man from this? 
Armstrong: Well, I'd like to think, I can't say for sure that I'm a better person or a better man. But I'd like to think that I am. It would probably be more fair to ask the others around me like my wife or my friends, my teammates. Hopefully I'm a more patient person and somebody that's a little more caring. But we'll see. Okmin: Recently you took a spill and suffered a concussion. How are you right now and will this affect your training for this year's Tour de France? Armstrong: The crash was almost two months before the Tour would have started so it will not affect the preparation. Now we know. At the time it was a little bit scary. It was actually the most scared I've ever been on a bike because I saw it coming and I knew that it would going to be bad. But I was lucky. I was lucky to get out with just a concussion and spend the night in the hospital which I hated to do. In the end it's not going to affect anything. Okmin: Lance, I think cancer survivors will understand your answer on this next question. Others, luckily may not. But if you had to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, which would you choose? Armstrong: (Pause) Well, the answer is simple. I would choose the illness and choose cancer, choose the fight, choose the treatment, choose the recovery. Again, like I said a minute ago, this is something that will be with me forever. Things like bike races, like the Tour de France and winning other events, as an athlete people come along and win those every year. So they forget about you as an athlete. But what the illness did for me I'll forget about and I'll take that to my grave. Winning the Tour, was it a good time? Yes. Do I hope to do it more? Absolutely. Do I want to get sick again and go through all of that again? No, I don't. But if I had to choose one, both of them being equal, I would choose the illness. Okmin: What's the main message you want people to get out of this book? Armstrong: That there is hope. There are a lot of people that are diagnosed and feel like it's all over and feel like they're confused, (they) don't know where to turn, they don't know what their chances are, they don't think they will live. But that's normal. I felt that as well. But people survive the illness and they go on and they lead totally normal lives. They go on and they are better than they were before. That's the message. The message is that cancer isn't a death sentence and that we're (the survivors are) the lucky people a lot of times. The lessons we learn during that time are monumental. Okmin: The book is called, "It's Not About the Bike." Lance Armstrong, thank you for joining us and telling us what it is all about. Good luck this summer. Armstrong: Thank you.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
