Age catches up to Armstrong in final Tour de France (Feature)

By Siegfried Mortkowitz Jul 26, 2010, 6:02 GMT

Paris - Near the end of the 2010 Tour de France, Lance Armstrong posted a brief message on his Twitter page after spending the night with his son, Luke.

'My roommate just woke up,' he wrote. 'Oh to be a 10 year old again.'

That poignant statement represented quite a change of attitude from the man who emerged from a seemingly hopeless battle with cancer to become a symbol of athletic invincibility.

Armstrong had come to the last Tour de France of his life to prove that at age 38 he could still beat the best in the world. Instead, he finished nearly 40 minutes behind the winner, Alberto Contador, and learned the most fundamental of all lessons: time catches up to everyone.

The most successful Tour de France rider of all time, with seven consecutive titles to his name, he suffered a series of improbable mishaps, including several crashes, that eliminated him from contention after only one week of racing.

At first, the leader of the American Radio Shack team tried to blame his misfortune on destiny, telling France 2 television, 'I had a lot of luck all the other years, when I never crashed. Maybe it just caught up to me.'

But during the Tour's most demanding stage, the 16th, which involved four major climbs in succession over nearly 200 km, it was clear to most observers that more than luck had run out for Armstrong.

When it was obvious that he could not win the race, Armstrong and his team director, Johan Bruyneel, had chosen that stage for a try at one last bit of Tour glory.

Armstrong joined an early breakaway group in the stage and remained in contention until the end, when he was outsprinted to the finish line by younger riders.

'Just not quick enough,' he reluctantly admitted afterwards.

The attempt briefly rekindled images of Armstrong in his prime, when he dominated the Tour de France so completely, and with such arrogance, that he alienated a large part of the cycling public.

'That was the Lance we knew in the past, the same rider that was really the best ever,' Contador said in homage.

But even during his best moment on the Tour, it was clear that he was not the Armstrong of old, when he could power up a mountain with such speed that it made many observers wonder aloud if he was using banned substances.

It wasn't supposed to be like this at all. After an impressive third-place finish last year, following more than three years away from the sport, Armstrong came to the Tour in better shape and with serious ambitions for the title.

But during a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the conclusion of the 17th stage, Armstrong acted like a chastened individual.

Asked about his regrets in the race, he replied, 'I wish I had been younger, I wish I had been faster, and I wish I'd had more luck.'

Then, indicating Sarkozy, he told the interviewer, 'We're just two old guys who like to ride a bike.'

But Armstrong's final Tour was not a total bust. His Radio Shack team won the team title and he gained many new fans.

As the daily L'Equipe wrote Sunday, 'He patched up his image by tearing his jerseys and his shorts, by exposing weak points that no one had suspected. He learned to smile by familiarising himself with defeat. And it is by flirting with misfortune that he became accessible in the eyes of the public.'

Former Tour rider Rolf Aldag saw another bright side to Armstrong's Tour de France debacle.

Aldag told the New York Times, 'Imagine if he finished second. He would say: 'I was so close. They said I was done, but maybe I'm not.' Why wouldn't he want to come back next year? At least this way, when everything goes wrong and you suffer, you are like, please, let this stop. I'm done now.'