By Bryan Jew, VeloNews Senior Writer
On Sunday, under sunny skies on a hot, humid day in Paris, Lance Armstrong rolled along the finishing circuit on the Champs-Elysées 10 times along with the other 144 survivors of this year’s Tour de France. The American clinched his third consecutive victory in the world’s biggest bike race after 23 grueling days. It began with difficult cross-winds and dangerous roads during Week 1, followed by a week going up and over the massive mountains of the Alps and Pyrénées, and finally concluding with six days of heat and humidity over undulating roads as the race cut up through the mid-section of France on its way to Paris. And in pulling off his Tour de France three-peat, Armstrong put himself in some select company.
Armstrong and his team director refuse to talk history, at least publicly, but with his third Tour de France win, Armstrong climbed up into the elite ranks of Tour winners. Last year, Armstrong became one of 19 riders to win two or more Tours, but only seven others have won three or more: Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, who have won five; and Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and fellow American Greg LeMond, with three each.
As he did last year, Armstrong brushed aside comparisons with the riders of the past. “To tie a record or break a record will never be my motivation,” Armstrong said. “I don’t look at myself as an Indurain or a Merckx or an Anquetil. I look at myself as a lesser rider.”
And on the eve of the final stage, Bruyneel said simply, “No comparison. It’s another time, another level.” And then with great understatement, “I think for the moment, in the Tour de France — he’s the best.”
In this year’s Tour, no one was even close to Armstrong. And although the final deficit of Jan Ullrich, 6:44, was very close to last year’s, that only showed further what a high level Armstrong was at, because Ullrich had entered the Tour better prepared than ever before. The German and his Telekom team truly felt that he had the goods to win the Tour, but all it took was one climb up Alpe d’Huez, the first mountaintop finish of this year’s Tour, to begin to erode that confidence.
As those mountains continued, and Armstrong padded his lead every day with his explosive attacks, he continued to deflate his rival. “If you know you’ve been preparing for the Tour like never before,” said Telekom team director Rudy Pevenage in the Alps, “and you know you’re good, and you come to the Tour thinking you’re going to win the Tour — and then you lose two minutes, and then another minute today, that can’t be very good for the morale.
“He is [in good form],” said Pevenage of Ullrich. “You look at his times, and his behavior, and the way he looks — he only has one problem. And his name is Armstrong.”
For Armstrong, the final test came on Friday, when he again crushed his rivals in the final time trial of the Tour, taking his fourth stage victory and not allowing anyone a glimmer of hope for the future.
Indeed, in the past, Armstrong has shown a few chinks in the armor, suffering through bad days on his ways to his first two titles. But this year, he even eliminated those. “I never had the crises that I had the last two years,” he said. “I’ve never experienced the suffering that I did in ’99, the last day in the mountains, and the suffering that I experienced last year on the [climb of] Joux Plane.
“But, Jan Ullrich was the best that I’ve ever seen him. He was much better than he was last year. So, that means it wasn’t easy.”
On Saturday evening, Armstrong met with the press for the final time in this year’s Tour, and in that press conference, he was asked what message he had on the eve of his third straight win. “That’s a good question, and an answer that I don’t want to mess up,” he said. “But I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
“[Ullrich] was ready. He was really ready and much better than I thought he would be, and I’m glad the work that we did and the preparation we did was good enough to beat a rider like him. I don’t really have a profound message, and for me to sit up here and make one up, spur of the moment, it wouldn’t be real, it wouldn’t be right.
“I’ve probably had more fun this Tour than I’ve ever had. I don’t know why, but it was just a very fun Tour de France for me.”
And as long as that enjoyment and passion are still there, Armstrong says he’ll continue to come back to the Tour, whether it’s to chase No. 4, No. 5, or more.
“The Tour de France is everything for me and for the team. It’s the biggest bike race in America. Paris or New York or Los Angeles or Austin, Texas, it’s the biggest bike race in the world. And it’s a beautiful event, and in my opinion, an event that is bigger and better and better supported than ever before. It’s a huge event, and a global event, and something that the Postal Service knows is the only thing that matters. As long as I race a bike, it’s going to be the focus.
“I have a lot left. I love it. I love what I do. I love the event, regardless of little sagas and little controversies that come along. You know what, I even like that. A little heated press conference on the rest day is probably just what I needed, because I need a little competition in my life, even on the rest day.
“So I still love what I do. I love the approach, I love the preparation, I love the race. As long as that stays the same, the passion is there, then I’ll be around for years. But like I said many times, I hope I have a gauge on when the passion goes away, and I can leave very quickly. Very quickly. Because I don’t want to make the mistake that other athletes have made…. As long as my gauge is good and the passion is there, then I’ll be back.”
No. 4 awaits.