Lance Armstrong Interview | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Breaking Away (cont.)

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine, July 2005

Page:

Tour de France
Breaking Away (cont.)


	Lance Armstrong (Photograph by Cliff Watts)

SURPRISE, SURPRISE
We're tired of asking Lance about drugs, and he's tired of answering. He says that he's never tested positive and that he's never used performance-enhancing substances, period. Yet he'll never escape the paradox of a sport in which some riders cheat, some are caught, and many believe others get away with it.

So if Lance Armstrong had absolute power in cycling, we asked, what would his prescription be for making the drug problem go away?

The race controls could not be made any better. The winner is tested every day. Three or four people tested at random. And on certain days even the top three are tested. There's a lot. And I think at the Tour they do 10 to 15 controls a day. And now they're

"Maybe I'll run for governor. I drove Sheryl by the governor's mansion last night on the way home. It's a nice house."

doing both urine and blood. I don't think very many sports can say that they do that.

The one thing that I think will change a lot in the future is the out-of-competition controls. That's the best way to control drugs in sports. Surprise controls. Knock on the door: We're here, where are you? I would think that is a serious deterrent for any athlete tempted by drugs. I got four surprise controls this season.

TANNED, RESTED, AND READY
Two months after this year's Tour, Armstrong will turn 34. Many great athletes fail to go on and have interesting second acts, but his chances seem better than most. For one thing, he's already had a second act, and his aura—the idea that here's a man who enjoys still being alive against all odds—surrounds him convincingly.



	Lance Armstrong (Photograph by Cliff Watts)

You're going to be changing professions at some point.
I'll obviously stay involved with the team for the remainder of its existence. Many of the sponsors, I have long-term deals with—like Trek and 24-Hour Fitness and Nike and Discovery.

There's just a whole bunch of other stuff I want to do. I want to go ride my motorcycle on my ranch. I want to go kayak the Pedernales down to friggin' Lake Travis and call somebody and say, "Uh, can you come pick me up?" I've got a lot of stuff, goofy things like that. I want to build a rock wall out here. Just weird things. Right now, I can't go build a rock wall, because I'd get arm muscles that I can't use. It sounds funny, but it's true—everything you do.

Maybe I'll run for governor.

Joke or serious?
There's no follow-up. I'll leave it at that. Not in '06, though. I drove Sheryl by the governor's mansion last night on the way home from dinner. It's a nice mansion. Nice place, nice house—I hate the word mansion, but it's a nice house.

Location, location, location.
Well, it's next to work, next to the capitol.

That's more like it. I mean, it all sounds good—building walls and taking vacations—but you don't strike us as that kind of person.
No, and everybody says that. But that stuff I'm talking about—I'm not talking about doing that for 20 years; I'm talking about taking a year or however long I need to just step back from the sport, decompress, download, figure out where I am in my life, where my children are in their lives. How much traveling I want to do or don't want to do. But no, I'm a person who needs projects and needs to work and needs to be building something or trying to create something. Otherwise I'll go crazy.

I would want to do Australia, do Malaysia, just some stuff that's different. Everest is not on my list.

What about staying fit?
Ex-athletes get soft and they're not as fit as they were, but I've got to be fit. Forever.

No beer gut?
No. I mean, I get a little beer gut in the winter. You know, I'm not going to turn into a Greg LeMond. Forty extra LBs.

Now we've got our scandalous headline.
I thought about it before I said it.

Any idea of going back to triathlon?
No. Listen, I am going to do a triathlon, and it's called Luke, Grace, Isabelle. Those are the three; that's enough. My first priority is just to be there for my children as much as I can.

Beyond that, I guess there's no real ranking, but my commitment in the cancer community will increase significantly. I'll go back to working a lot more on that. The relationship with Discovery will continue for years to come. I'll be more and more involved in programming there and in all their networks.

Page:

•	Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

•	Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

•	Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.