Lance Armstrong is slowly bowing out of the world of professional cycling, making his last international appearance at the Tour Down Under, which starts next Monday. In a press conference before the race in Australia, Armstrong talked about his Tour wins. The seven-time Tour de France has already plans for the future. Inevitably, doping questions came up as well.
Armstrong put his long string of success in France down to hard work and innovation. "I won the Tour de France seven times, and I won it because I and the team changed the way cycling was done." He knows there are always questions about the validity of his wins. "I am not interested in all the doubts about our success. But in reality we took a whole new approach to the sport."
Armstrong said that multiple pieces needed to be changed to get the puzzle together. "We revolutionized how to train, how to build morale, the course previews, how to race, the way the sport is sold and the way how to carry that story around the world."
He was happy with his achievements. "I am leaving with the knowledge that I did my best. For that, nobody has to give me a medal." Armstrong is only looking ahead now. "I don't reminisce much. It would be a mistake to think back on the stuff that I did in bicycling, when I have much bigger things in front of me."
One of them is to try accommodate Robbie McEwen in the team. The Australian was signed to the team recently after Pegasus Sports failed to get a UCI Pro Continental licence. "The addition of Robbie is the biggest change for us, for our team in general. We have never had a top sprinter, so it will be a new experience for us," said Armstrong. His US Postal team was built around him entirely to win the Tour de France only. "I hope we can do him justice and support him."
When pressed on the doping issue, Armstrong once again emphasized the big progress that cycling has made already. "Our sport does everything to fight doping - more than any other sport." He said there was a simple reason for the many positive doping cases, the many controls. "If other sports would do the same controls, there would be same amount of cheats found, if not more."