Saluting Lance Armstrong!

Was watching a rerun of the ‘Tonight Show with Jay Leno’, originally telecast last week. One of the guests featured on the show was Lance Armstrong. This was an interview I had been wanting to watch for awhile now.

Though I do not follow cycling a great deal - in fact I can’t name any other cyclist apart from Lance Armstrong. Isn’t that in a sense an indication of the man’s total domination of his sport? That in the general public’s perception - he has come to epitomize the sport itself.

‘The Tour de France’, is arguably modern sports toughest and most prized competitions. The event has traditionally been the domain of the French, with an occasional victory by some other European from the Pyrenees thrown in. But during the last half decade the 'Tour' has been totally and absolutely dominated by this unassuming and affable American (Oxymoron, huh?).

Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with Cancer, but successfully fought the disease both physically and psychologically to come back and win the Tour a record breaking six years in a row!

While some might disagree, I doubt if modern sport has seen such all conquering individual domination and brilliance, especially in the face of personal crisis.

What clearly came through during the course of the'Tonigh Show' interview was the spirit of sportsmanship the man enshrines. He spoke in glowing terms about all his competitors, many of whom have often bad mouthed him in print. And at Jay Leno’s good humored prodding, spoke about his romantic relationship with Sheryl Crow.

World Sport today with all its glamour, corporate sponsorship and product endorsements, has seen the birth of the celebrity-sportsman, often at the cost of the quintessential sporting hero. Lance Armstrong is probably the sole torchbearer of this near extinct tribe.

He typifies what the ‘Times of India’ prints everyday on the top of the Sports Supplement, ‘Sport not only builds character, but also reveals it’.

Here is Saluting Lance Armstrong!