Athlete with courage and spirits soaring as high as sky, there would hardly be a soul alive who wouldn’t have heard of Lance Armstrong. Born in 1971,Lance Edward Armstrong is an American Triathlete having won innumerable sprint competitions. Lance Armstrong is more popularly known as professional road racing cyclist having won 7 consecutive Tour de France championships from 1999 to 2005. The biggest thing about winning these prestigious prizes and that be in seven consecutive years is that Lance claimed all these titles after being diagnosed with a third grade testicular cancer.
Early Career:
Born on 18th September 1971, Lance Edward Armstrong was born in Plano, Texas, United States of America. From the tender age of 12, Lance has a craze in athletics and started his athletic career from swimming. Just a year later, he won a triathlon for kids and had bedazzled everyone with his outstanding performance from such an early age. He soon came under limelight and started taking part in competitions and soon became number 1 triathlon champion in USA under 19 categories.
Professional Career:
Lance joined Motorola racing team from 1992to 1996. During this period, he developed his professional career, loading his trophy cabinet. He won races after races and continued to stun the world with his cyclist abilities. It was in this time period he won his first Tour de France. He later qualified for the Olympic Cyclist team. During this period, Lance has won several national and international cups and challenges and had signed multi-million dollar contracts with various companies.
Cancer:
Lance was diagnosed a third degree testicular cancer in the year 1995. The cancer quickly spread to all his body affecting his lungs, abdomen and brain altogether. The cancerous tumor was soon removed from his body, but the doctors were of the opinion that he’ll not live long enough. He underwent a number of surgeries and treatments and was improving but over a span of 2 years. He was announced cancer free in 1997.
Later Career:
It was the later career that Lance brought laurels to his country. Having won 7 consecutive Tour de France championships after successful rehabilitation from cancer, there was nothing stopping Lance Armstrong. He had faced over 600 doping allegations in his career and had proved them all wrong after clinical tests. However in 2012, he was found guilty of distributing and using performance enhancing drugs and was disqualified from all the championship results after 1998 and banned for life.
