Lance Armstrong - The growing pains of a world champion

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Outside magazine, July 1994

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"I'm Not the Next Greg LeMond. I'm the First Lance Armstrong."

The wide-eyed Motorola coaches had seen the future, too. A few weeks after dividing up the booty among team members and staff (Armstrong reportedly took home only about $25,000), they announced that Armstrong would start in the Tour de France. Many, including Carmichael, thought he shouldn't ride it—that the impressionable Armstrong, who would be the youngest rider in the field, would overextend himself in the world's most grueling cycling race and possibly put the rest of his season in jeopardy. But Jim Ochowicz wasn't to be swayed; Armstrong was suddenly a hot commodity and gung ho to race.

The hope was that Armstrong would win a stage and then drop out before the difficult climbing legs in the Pyrenees, and amazingly enough that's what happened. He dramatically stole a win in the 114-mile stage from Chalons-sur-Marne to Verdun, coming desperately close to crashing into the course barriers as he outsprinted the rest of the lead pack over the last 50 yards.

"People say because I'm 21 I can't handle this intensity," said a jubilant Armstrong, who had started slowly in the Tour eight days earlier. "But the fact remains that I've felt better every day. Today was the proof." Four days later Ochowicz pulled him out of the race to begin preparations for the World Championships, one month away.

Armstrong's good fortune wasn't the only news. Not a week after the stage win, Ochowicz announced that the Motorola execs had had a change of heart and decided to extend the sponsorship for another season. The team, performing well in the Tour even in Armstrong's absence, landed two riders in the top ten and finished fourth overall. Finally, just days before the Worlds, Armstrong agreed to a new one-year contract worth a reported $500,000, turning down a far more lucrative three-year deal worth an estimated $2.3 million with the Dutch-registered WordPerfect team. More important than the money, to Armstrong, was the familiarity. He was accepted by his teammates—Anderson and other veterans like Steve Bauer saw a lot of their younger selves in Armstrong, and the Texan had earned the respect of the domestiques and other young riders. Armstrong also wasn't sure that he'd be the team leader on another squad. With Motorola he was the franchise.

The Worlds made Motorola's decision appear to be a work of genius. Armstrong, coming off a grueling four-week training program, was in the lead group with the last of 14 laps to go. The race had been marred by daylong torrential rains and scores of crashes. Armstrong himself had crashed twice on the 18.4-kilometer circuit, but both times he avoided serious injury and quickly rejoined the front-runners. On the circuit's next-to-last climb Armstrong surged, leaving Indurain and many of the others behind, and by the top he was in the lead. On the steeper Ekeberg ascent he attacked again, and after speeding down the treacherous four-kilometer descent he saw...no one. With three kilometers left he had a 20-second lead—short of catastrophe, the race was his. Armstrong was so shocked that for one terrifying moment he believed he'd made the most boneheaded mistake of his young life. "I thought I must've jumped a lap early," he says. "I mean, where was everybody?" His handlebar-mounted computer, however, showed 255 kilometers. There was no mistake. In the final 700 meters Armstrong did everything but an end-zone dance, firing punches into the air, blowing kisses, and acknowledging the cheers of the sodden fans with deep, Olivier-quality bows.

Up on the Ekeberg, teammates Frankie Andreu and Andy Bishop had gotten word that Armstrong was moments away from winning. "I was just like, 'No way,'" says Andreu. As they reached the top, they glanced up at Big Mo, the billboard-size television that was carrying the live feed, hopped off their bikes, and like the thousands of others in attendance watched with amazement as Armstrong broke the finish line, hands held high. Then they got back on their bikes and finished the race.

Within the throngs at the finish was a euphoric Linda Walling. Arrangements were quickly made to introduce the new champion to Norway's King Harald V, but the royal aides politely told Armstrong that bringing his mother along wasn't possible. Lance turned on his heel and strode away. "I probably came on pretty strong," he says, "but man, I don't check my mom at the door, I don't care who it is." Ultimately, the rebuffed royal aides reeled in the champ—and his mother. According to Armstrong, his audience with the king was brief and not terribly memorable. "The King of Norway, I'm sure he's great and everything," he says. "But I just wanted to get out of there and go party with the guys."

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