Best athlete in a sport the US couldn’t care less about: 2005 Tour de France – Armstrong wins 7th Tour de France – Sunday July 24, 2005.
PARIS (AP) — Lance Armstrong closed out his amazing career with a seventh consecutive Tour de France victory Sunday — and did it a little earlier than expected.
Because of wet conditions, race organizers stopped the clock as Armstrong and the main pack entered Paris. Although riders were still racing, with eight laps of the Champs-Elysees to complete, organizers said that Armstrong had officially won.
That’s either a nice homage to a retiring superstar, or just another example of French weirdness; today, it’s the prior. For other oddities, SI cannot have a story about Lance this week without including senseless mentionings of his current singer-girlfriend, a People-magazine-esque bit I got tired of after two stories.
For the record, you can have Tiger Woods, the most dominant athlete in sport for the last decade has been Lance (and his team(s), which don’t get nearly enough credit).
go, lance go!