 E-mail Story Print Friendly
|
Sunday, July 3, 2005
'War' Recounts Lance Armstrong's Stoic Bid For 2004 Tour de France
By John Fleck
Of the Journal
To say that Lance Armstrong's story transcends sport— a talented kid recovers from cancer to become the greatest bicycle racer of our age— has become cliché.
But Armstrong himself has remained an enigmatic character. Revealed to the American public primarily through the lens of his own public relations, the nature and scope of his accomplishment in winning six consecutive Tours de France has been difficult for the American public to grasp.
Outside magazine contributing editor Daniel Coyle fills in much of the void in his riveting account of Armstrong's masterful 2004 Tour victory.
It is a story that would read like a good novel if it weren't true. A remarkable cast of characters light up the tale. There is the gritty and lovable American Tyler Hamilton ("How could someone who loves his dog so much cheat?" I said to a friend after Hamilton was accused last year of blood doping.), the wildly talented but inevitably unpredictable German Jan Ullrich, the fearless Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov, the cocky Mennonite Floyd Landis, the teammate who rode at Armstrong's side in victory.
The complex and dark world of European pro cycling provides an almost Dickensian backdrop— a hardscrabble existence where most cyclists make a pittance compared to other pro athletes, where injury rates dwarf those of any other sport.
(A European pro cyclist faces a one-in-four chance of ending up in the hospital over the course of a season, Coyle notes, adding, "In the 2002 NASCAR season, by comparison, there were five serious injuries all year.")
Cyclists talk of "suffering," the pain of pushing their bodies beyond the humane, and for Europe's rabid cycling fans, the sport is in many ways a bloodsport not unlike boxing.
It is no surprise that the crowds are thickest on the races' steepest climbs, where the suffering is greatest.
To this world comes Armstrong, the handsome American whose almost unnatural will to win is illuminated by Coyle with far more depth than Armstrong's own ghost-written autobiographies. The suffering is there with Armstrong, but it is masked by an almost robotic fanaticism with detail that has left the European fans wanting. If we are to believe Coyle, they largely hate him.
It is through those throngs of screaming fans that Coyle places us on Armstrong's back wheel on last year's climb up Alpe D'Huez, the time trial that cemented what was probably his most emphatic Tour victory: "He sprinted for the line, low and hard, fists clenched, teeth bared, an image of freshly peeled ferocity. Some of the crowd shouted, but many more stared. After 156 riders, 156 different exhausted faces, they were seeing something different, a face that did not ask for applause or love or understanding or anything except the animal respect due to a superior force."
By the end of the book, Armstrong remains something of an enigma. Despite earning extraordinary access to Armstrong and his colleagues, Coyle ends up circling a mystery that he cannot fully explain.
That is not a criticism of the book, which is a terrific read. Armstrong is simply a tough nut to crack, as his Tour opponents will likely learn again in the coming three weeks on the roads of France.
John Fleck is a cyclist and the Journal's science writer.
"Lance Armstrong's War" by Daniel Coyle
HarperCollins, $25.95, 326 pp.