Best Known As: Sports Figure

Gist:  Lance Edward Armstrong (born Lance Edward Gunderson on September 18, 1971) is an American professional road racing cyclist who rides for UCI ProTeam .

He won the Tour de France a record-breaking seven consecutive years, from 1999 to 2005. He is the only person to win seven times, having broken the previous record of five wins, shared by Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil. He has survived testicular cancer, a tumor that metastasized to his brain and lungs in 1996. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy, and his prognosis was originally poor.

In 1999, he was named the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In 2000 he won the Prince of Asturias Award in Sports. In 2002, Sports Illustrated magazine named him Sportsman of the Year. He was also named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for the years 2002?2005. He received ESPN's ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, and won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award in 2003. Armstrong retired from racing on July 24, 2005, at the end of the 2005 Tour de France, but returned to competitive cycling in January 2009, finishing third in the 2009 Tour de France.

Life Facts:  , taking over the Yellow Jersey at Grand Prix Midi Libre]]

Before his cancer treatment, Armstrong had won two Tour de France stages. In 1993, he won the 8th stage and in 1995 he took stage 18 in honor of teammate Fabio Casartelli who crashed and died on stage 15. Armstrong dropped out of the 1996 Tour on the 7th stage after becoming ill, a few months before his diagnosis.

Armstrong's cycling comeback began in 1998 when he finished fourth in the Vuelta a España. In 1999 he won the Tour de France, including four stages. He beat the second rider, Alex Zülle, by 7 minutes 37 seconds. However, the absence of Jan Ullrich (injury) and Marco Pantani (drug allegations) meant Armstrong had not yet proven himself against the biggest names. Stage wins included the prologue, stage eight, an individual time trial in Metz, an Alpine stage on stage nine, and the second individual time trial on stage 19.

In 2000, Ullrich and Pantani returned to challenge Armstrong. The race that began a six-year rivalry between Ullrich and Armstrong ended in victory for Armstrong by 6 minutes 2 seconds over Ullrich. Armstrong took one stage in the 2000 Tour, the second individual time trial on stage 19. In 2001, Armstrong again took top honors, beating Ullrich by 6 minutes 44 seconds. In 2002, Ullrich did not participate due to suspension, and Armstrong won by seven minutes over Joseba Beloki.

The pattern returned in 2003, Armstrong taking first place and Ullrich second. Only 1 minute 1 second separated the two at the end of the final day in Paris. U.S. Postal won the team time trial on stage four, while Armstrong took stage 15, despite being knocked off on the ascent to Luz Ardiden, the final climb, when a spectator's bag caught his right handlebar. Ullrich waited for him, which brought Ullrich fair-play honors.

In 2004, Armstrong finished first, 6 minutes 19 seconds ahead of German Andreas Klöden. Ullrich was fourth, a further 2 minutes 31 seconds behind. Armstrong won a personal best five individual stages, plus the team time trial. He became the first since Gino Bartali in 1948 to win three consecutive mountain stages; 15, 16, and 17. The individual time trial on stage 16 up Alpe d'Huez was won in style by Armstrong as he passed Ivan Basso on the way despite setting out two minutes after the Italian. He won sprint finishes from Basso in stages 13 and 15 and made up a significant gap in the last 250m to nip Klöden at the line in stage 17. He won the final individual time trial, stage 19, to complete his personal record of stage wins.

In 2005, Armstrong was beaten by David Zabriskie in the Stage 1 time trial by 2 seconds, despite passing Ullrich on the road. His Discovery Channel team won the team time trial, while Armstrong won the final individual time trial. To complete his record-breaking feat, Armstrong crossed the line on the Champs-Élysées on July 24 to win his 7th consecutive Tour, finishing 4m 40s ahead of Basso, with Ullrich third.

Returning in 2009, Armstrong finished third, 5:24 back, becoming the second oldest rider to stand on the Tour podium. His Astana team dominated the race, with teammate Alberto Contador taking the overall title, and Astana also winning the team time trial.

In addition to 7 Tour de France wins, Armstrong won 22 individual stages (including 11 time trials) and his team won the team time trial on 4 occasions through 2009.

during the 2006 UT football season]]

Armstrong was born 'Lance Edward Gunderson' to Linda Mooneyham, a secretary, and Eddie Charles Gunderson, a route manager for The Dallas Morning News. He was named after Lance Rentzel, a Dallas Cowboys wide receiver. His father left his mother when Lance was two. His mother later married Terry Keith Armstrong, a wholesale salesman, who adopted Lance in 1974. Linda has married and divorced three times. Armstrong refuses to meet his birth father and has described Terry Armstrong as deceitful.

Armstrong met Kristin Richard in June 1997. They married on May 1, 1998 and have three children: Luke, born October 1999, and twins Isabelle and Grace, born November 2001. The pregnancy was possible through sperm Armstrong banked three years earlier, prior to chemotherapy and surgery. The couple filed for divorce in September 2003. At Armstrong's request, his children flew in for the podium ceremony in 2005, where Luke helped his father hoist the trophy, while his daughters (in yellow dresses) held the stuffed lion mascot and bouquet of yellow flowers.

Armstrong began dating singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow in autumn of 2003 and revealed their relationship in January 2004. The couple announced their engagement in September 2005 and their split in February 2006. In October 2007, Armstrong and fashion designer Tory Burch ended a relationship after several months. He dated American actress Kate Hudson from May-July 2008. On July 30 2008, a representative for Hudson announced the relationship had ended amicably.

In December 2008, Armstrong announced that his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, was pregnant with his child. The couple started dating in July 2008 after meeting through Armstrong's charity work. Although it was believed that Armstrong could no longer father children, after having undergone chemotherapy for testicular cancer, this child was conceived naturally. The baby boy, Maxwell Edward "Max" Armstrong, was born on June 4, 2009 in Aspen, Colorado. Armstrong announced the birth using the micro-blogging service Twitter. Armstrong has become a popular Twitter user with over 1,700,000 followers.

Armstrong owns a house in Austin, Texas, as well as a ranch in the Texas Hill Country. Armstrong is a fan of the University of Texas Longhorns college football program and is often seen on the sidelines supporting the team.

In regards to religion, he is agnostic, quoted as saying, "at the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, 'But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven.' If so, I was going to reply, 'You know what? You're right. Fine.'"

* Cycling records

Career Facts:  * Armstrong has been criticized for working with controversial trainer Michele Ferrari. Greg Lemond described himself as "devastated" on hearing of them working together, while Tour de France organizer Jean-Marie Leblanc said, "I am not happy the two names are mixed." Following Ferrari's later-overturned conviction for "sporting fraud" and "abuse of the medical profession," Armstrong suspended his professional relationship with him, saying that he had "zero tolerance for anyone convicted of using or facilitating the use of performance-enhancing drugs" and denying that Ferrari had ever "suggested, prescribed or provided me with any performance-enhancing drugs."

Ferrari was later absolved of all charges by an Italian appeals court of the sporting fraud charges as well as charges of abusing his medical license to write prescriptions. The court stated that it overturned his conviction "because the facts do not exist" to support the charges.

* In 2004, reporters Pierre Ballester and David Walsh published a book alleging Armstrong had used performance-enhancing drugs (L. A. Confidentiel - Les secrets de Lance Armstrong). It contains allegations by Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, who claimed Armstrong once asked her to dispose of used syringes and to give him makeup to conceal needle marks on his arms. Allegations in the book were reprinted in the UK newspaper The Sunday Times in a story by deputy sports editor Alan English in June 2004. Armstrong sued for libel, and the paper settled out of court after a High Court judge in a pre-trial ruling stated that the article "meant accusation of guilt and not simply reasonable grounds to suspect."

The newspaper's lawyers issued the statement: "The Sunday Times has confirmed to Mr. Armstrong that it never intended to accuse him of being guilty of taking any performance-enhancing drugs and sincerely apologised for any such impression." (See also in The Guardian). Armstrong later dropped similar lawsuits in France.

* On March 31 2005, Mike Anderson filed a brief in Travis County District Court in Texas, as part of a legal battle following his termination in November 2004 as an employee of Armstrong. Anderson worked for Armstrong for two years as a personal assistant. In the brief, Anderson claimed that he discovered a box of Androstenone while cleaning a bathroom in Armstrong's apartment in Girona, Spain. Androstenine is not on the list of banned drugs. Anderson stated in a subsequent deposition that he had no direct knowledge of Armstrong using a banned substance.

Armstrong denied the claim and issued a counter-suit. The two men reached an out-of-court settlement in November 2005; the terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

* On August 23, 2005, L'Équipe, a major French daily sports newspaper, reported on its front page under the headline "le mensonge Armstrong" ("The Armstrong Lie") that 6 urine samples taken from the cyclist during the prologue and five stages of the 1999 Tour de France, frozen and stored since at "Laboratoire national de dépistage du dopage de Châtenay-Malabry" (LNDD), had tested positive for Erythropoietin in recent retesting conducted as part of a research project into EPO testing methods. For years, it had been impossible to detect the drug, called erythropoietin, which builds endurance by boosting the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. The world governing body of cycling, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), did not begin using a urine test for EPO until 2001, two years after the samples were taken. This claim was based on an investigation in which they claimed to be able to match samples from the 1999 Tour that were used to hone the EPO test to Armstrong. To establish a link between Armstrong and the samples, the LNDD matched the tracking numbers on the samples with those on Armstrong's record with the UCI during the 1999 Tour.

Armstrong immediately replied on his website, saying, "Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and tomorrow?s article is nothing short of tabloid journalism. The paper even admits in its own article that the science in question here is faulty and that I have no way to defend myself. They state: 'There will therefore be no counter-exam nor regulatory prosecutions, in a strict sense, since defendant?s rights cannot be respected.' I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance enhancing drugs."

In October 2008, the AFLD gave Armstrong the opportunity to have samples taken during the 1998 and 1999 Tours de France retested. Armstrong immediately refused, saying, "the samples have not been maintained properly." Head of AFLD Pierre Bordry stated: "Scientifically there is no problem to analyse these samples - everything is correct" and "If the analysis is clean it would have been very good for him. But he doesn't want to do it and that's his problem."

* In June 2006, French newspaper Le Monde reported claims by Betsy and Frankie Andreu during a deposition that Armstrong had admitted using performance-enhancing drugs to his physician just after brain surgery in 1996. The Andreus' testimony was related to litigation between Armstrong and SCA Promotions, a Texas company attempting to withhold a $5-million bonus; this was settled out of court with SCA paying Armstrong and Tailwind Sports $7.5 million, to cover the $5-million bonus plus interest and lawyers' fees.

The testimony stated "And so the doctor asked him a few questions, not many, and then one of the questions he asked was... have you ever used any performance-enhancing drugs? And Lance said yes. And the doctor asked, what were they? And Lance said, growth hormone, cortisone, EPO, steroids and testosterone.

"[ Ex-Friends Say Armstrong Admitted Drug Use]



Armstrong suggested Betsy Andreu may have been confused by possible mention of his post-operative treatment which included steroids and EPO that are taken to counteract wasting and red-blood-cell-destroying effects of intensive chemotherapy, but this is at odds with the fact that it was necessary for Armstrong to tell the doctor the list of drugs taken, and the use of the phrase "performance enhancing".

The Andreus' allegation was not supported by any of the eight other people present, including Armstrong's doctor Craig Nichols, or his medical history. However, according to Greg LeMond (who has been embroiled with his own disputes with Armstrong), there exists a recorded conversation in which Stephanie McIlvain, Armstrong's contact at Oakley Inc., said of Armstrong's alleged admission 'You know, I was in that room. I heard it.' McIlvain has contradicted LeMond and denied the incident occurred in her sworn testimony.

* In July 2006, the Los Angeles Times published a story on the allegations raised in the SCA case. The report cited evidence at the trial including the results of the LNDD test and an analysis of these results by an expert witness. From the LA Times article: "The results, Australian researcher Michael Ashenden testified in Dallas, show Armstrong's levels rising and falling, consistent with a series of injections during the Tour. Ashenden, a paid expert retained by SCA Promotions, told arbitrators the results painted a "compelling picture" that the world's most famous cyclist "used EPO in the '99 Tour." Ashenden's finding were disputed by the Vrijman report, which pointed to procedural and privacy issues in dismissing the LNDD test results. The LA Times article also provided information on testimony given by Armstrong's former teammate, Swart, Andreu and his wife Betsy, and Instant messaging conversation between Andreu and Jonathan Vaughters regarding blood-doping in the peloton. Vaughters signed a statement disavowing the comments and stating he had: "no personal knowledge that any team in the Tour de France, including Armstrong's Discovery team in 2005, engaged in any prohibited conduct whatsoever." Andreu signed a statement affirming the conversation took place as indicated on the instant messaging logs submitted to the court.

The SCA trial was settled out of court, and the LA Times reported: "Though no verdict or finding of facts was rendered, Armstrong called the outcome proof that the doping allegations were baseless." The L.A. Times' article provides a review of the disputed positive EPO test, allegations and sworn testimony against Armstrong, but notes that: "They are filled with conflicting testimony, hearsay and circumstantial evidence admissible in arbitration hearings but questionable in more formal legal proceedings."

During his first retirement, Armstrong focused on the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which supports people affected by cancer, and on other interests. He was the pace car driver of the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 for the 2006 Indianapolis 500.

In 2007, Armstrong with Andre Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Warrick Dunn, Jeff Gordon, Mia Hamm, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mario Lemieux, Alonzo Mourning, and Cal Ripken, Jr. founded Athletes for Hope, a charity which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires non-athletes to volunteer and support the community.

;1991 - Subaru-Montgomery / US National Team

: National Amateur Road Race Champion

: Settimana Bergamasca (overall and youth classifications)

: Gastown Grand Prix (now known as Tour de Gastown criterium) (Vancouver, BC)

: Challenge of Champions Triathlon (Monterey, CA)

;1990 - Subaru-Montgomery

: National Sprint Triathlon Champion

: Stonebridge Ranch Triathlon (McKinney, TX)

;1989

: National Sprint Triathlon Champion

: Waco Triathlon (Waco, TX)

;1988

: Athens YMCA Triathlon (Athens, TX) (course record)

: River Triathlon (Shreveport, LA) (course record)

: Hillcrest Tulsa Triathlon (Tulsa, OK)

;1987

: Texas State Triathlon Championship

: Hillcrest Tulsa Triathlon (course record)

;1986

: Norman Triathlon (Norman, OK)

;1985

: 2nd, IronKids Triathlon National Championship

: IronKids Triathlon at Houston (regional level)

: IronKids Triathlon at Dallas (local level)

;1983

: IronKids Triathlon at Dallas