''Were ethical codes violated? Absolutely. |
“Anything is possible. You can be told that you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.” |
[But the strongest reason he gave for discounting the results of the B-sample tests from France was heartfelt and honest, and totally typical of the iconic cancer survivor.] A guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, ... Why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way. |
[Cancer] is a big, big problem. It's an old problem and people have sort of gotten used to it, ... Let's make it a priority again. Let's put it out there. Let's fix the problem. |
[It got worse. In the brick-oven heat of stage 12, Armstrong miscalculated the amount of water he would need--] Dumb, ... That's as close as I've come to just getting off the bike and quitting. |
[It is likely that some people critical of Armstrong in the book will be testifying.] There will be cross-examination, ... My lawyers tell me they do this all the time. |
[Meanwhile, the former pro rider defended cycling, which in his opinion, the same rules weren't applied as in other sports.] I can understand why a journalist publishes the information, ... But I have my doubts on the lab. And I ask myself: Why only Armstrong and not the other ones? Why only cycling and not the urine samples of the French soccer players in the 1998 World Championships? |
[Not as long as Armstrong is riding. Asked at the end of the second week whether he thought he was] too much of a force for the Tour's own good, ... I don't know. But I know that I love the race. I love everything that it stands for. It is what they pay me to do. This is my job. They say, 'Lance, we want you to win the Tour de France.' That's what the team wants, what the sponsors want, what cycling fans in America want, what cancer survivors around the world want. |
A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. If you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing. |
A guy in a Parisian laboratory opens up your sample, you know, Jean Francois so-and-so, and he tests it — nobody's there to observe, no protocol was followed — and then you get a call from a newspaper that says, 'We found you to be positive six times for EPO.' Well, since when did newspapers start governing sports? |
A guy like him - I'm not blowing smoke - could be the future of cycling. |
a little slice of heaven. |
All I can say is that when we got a phone call to ask if I was interested in driving the Pace Car at Indy, it was a very short conversation. It was like, 'Are you kidding? Of course.' It's a huge honor and something that I am very excited to do. Hopefully I cannot mess things up, if that's possible. |
And you saw how they reacted. |
Andre's been doing this for 20 years at the highest level, and you just can't argue with that, |