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Headline:

The full transcript of Donald McRae's interview with Lance Armstrong

Synopsis:

ON DECIDING TO RETURN TO COMPETITIVE CYCLING

What are your main reasons for making this comeback now?

There are two parts to it. There's the physical, competitive part but there's also the [Cancer] Foundation part. But I had to know that I would be competitive before I went out and did this because otherwise it would have kind been a joke. Of course there may still be some unknown there although I think I'll be strong - because I'm strong-willed. I had been mulling it over before racing in Leadville. But it was not very serious and I had not told many people about it. It was just a wild idea.

Had you been missing the intensity of cycling? Is this, fundamentally, why you've come back to racing again?

It's been a while. This last summer it was three years [since his last Tour de France]. And in all of the other summers I never felt that. You would think in the first summer out I'd really feel it badly and then with the next one it would diminish a little with time. But, with me, the first two or three summers I went without thinking much about it at all. And then all of a sudden it came back. Those other summers I wasn't this fit. But this summer I wanted to get fit because I wanted to run fast in Chicago - I really started training hard. And that's what did it. That daily ritual of exercise, of getting fit, of really being in tune with your body got me thinking. So there wasn't one single moment.

Any doubts?

[Laughs] I spoke to the board, which is my kids and my ex-wife, and none of them had any doubts. They were totally supportive. My kids, obviously, were [supportive] but I really needed my ex-wife because I respect her a lot and we're really close. I didn't know what she would think. But she was overwhelmingly supportive. And then beyond that people who manage my career, who run the Foundation, I needed to talk to them. As with anything there is going to be up and downsides to it. There's going to be natural negative factors that you have to consider but [he takes a deep breath] you sit down and you look at it and you think, on balance, this is a positive thing overall. That's the beauty of this comeback. You lay out different scenarios in your head. What if you won the Tour again? Or the Giro? Or if you won them both? Or you lost them both? You lay it all out and I'm still up for it."

What about Chris Carmichael, your main cycling coach for the last 20 years? ...

Publish date:

18 November 2008

Author:

Donald McRae

Source:

The Guardian

Media:

Access Interview