But the fact is that I wouldn’t have won even a single Tour de France without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.
Regardless of one victory, two victories, four victories, there’s never been a victory by a cancer survivor. That’s a fact that hopefully I’ll be remembered for.
Life to me is a series of false limits and my challenge as an athlete is to explore those limits.
I am just coming into my best years. This year I did new things; stretching and abdominal work.
Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining that road.
My cocktail, so to speak, was only EPO, but not a lot, transfusions and testosterone.
Hope that is the only antidote to fear.
But, listen, Eddie Merkyx would have won six Tours if he hadn’t been punched.
In my most painful moments on the bike, I am at my most curious and I wonder each and every time how I will respond.
The Europeans look down on raising your hands. They don’t like the end-zone dance. I think that’s unfortunate. That feeling – the finish line, the last couple of meters – is what motivates me.
It works better for me to be nervous and hungry.
If a script writer had come up with a story resembling what you have just achieved, even the Hollywood studios would have refused.
I can get up in the morning and look myself in the mirror and my family can look at me too and that’s all that matters.
When I was sick, I didn’t want to die. When I race, I don’t want to lose. Dying and losing, it’s the same thing.
I guess if a person didn’t quit when the going got tough, they wouldn’t have anything to regret for the rest of their life.
It’s funny, because I have periods where I just kind of go dark. I don’t tweet, I don’t talk, I don’t interview, and then I have times where I do.
At least I didn’t invent a dead girlfriend.
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?
Some things you can’t win, though I don’t like to admit it. I’m not used to losing much of anything, whether its a race or a debate, but among the things that I nearly lost are my life, my neck, and my good name, and I’ve gained a realization: a life of unbroken success is not only impossible, it’s probably not even good for you...
Make every obstacle an opportunity.” And that’s what we did.
Make every negative into a positive,” as my mother says. Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.