ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010012
SECTION: TOUR DUPONT PAGE: 18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
It's an Olympic year, but for Lance Armstrong the most important race of 1996 is his next.
After back-to-back second-place finishes in the Tour DuPont, Armstrong won his nation's biggest cycling event in 1995. The eighth annual Tour DuPont, over the next 12 days, will be a good indicator of how successful Armstrong considers the year.
It's already been pretty special for the Texan, who was the 1993 world champion in road racing. Armstrong has qualified for the U.S. Olympic cycling team at the Atlanta Games because he ranks among the top 15 to date in the World Cup standings. He has finished second in six European races this spring and won the prestigious Fleche Wallone race in Huy, Belgium, on April 16.
The victory over the Ardennes hills was his biggest since a World Cup triumph last year in San Sebastian, Spain. He competed in the Barcelona Games in 1992 as an amateur, then turned pro a week later. This year, U.S. pro cyclists are permitted to compete in the Summer Games.
Armstrong, 24, approaches the Tour DuPont with his Motorola Cycling Team differently than he did a year ago, and recently he spoke with American journalists on a transcontinental conference call. Roanoke Times sports columnist Jack Bogaczyk was among the participants.
Here is some of what Armstrong had to say:
Q. The Fleche Wallone isn't well-known in the United States. Can you describe how it felt to win it and paint a picture of what the race means in the sport?
A. It felt great to win. My biggest concern was keeping from finishing second again. To finally win one was satisfying, and the Fleche Wallone, it's one of the monuments of the sport. ... It's hard to paint it for Americans, difficult for us to realize how big it is over here, how traditional. The crowds at the race, the TV time. It's on the cover of every newspaper, and not just in Belgium but across Europe. I've always liked the race. It's special to win it.
Q. How does it feel to come into the Tour DuPont as the defending champion?
A. I feel a little more relieved going in. Last year, I hadn't had as good a spring campaign as I'd have liked. Having finished second two years [1993 and '94], last year was a must win for me. I don't feel as much pressure this year. I don't feel like I need to win the Tour DuPont. I feel strong. I feel I'm going to win, but I don't feel I need to do it, like I did last year.
Q. What are your thoughts on this year's Tour DuPont course? The time-trial miles are down from 51 to 17. Does that play to your strength?
A. It's less, much less. I guess the changes made were anti-Lance, and I guess I have to live with that. The course still has its hard moments, Mountain Lake into Blacksburg and Beech Mountain (N.C.) to me those are where the difference will be made. The time trial in Roanoke was super for me. I'd love to still see it in there, but it isn't, and I can't change that. There are still some climbs, though, and I think the race will be won into Blacksburg and on Beech Mountain.
Q. With the Tour DuPont, the Tour de France and the Olympics, this is a very different cycling year. How do those events fit together for you, if at all?
A. That's a good question. The Tour DuPont is the end of the first part of the year. That's why I'm so adamant about not [competing in the Olympic Trials], because to do that you'd be racing for a month at 100 percent. The Tour is really two weeks and it's hard to combine that with anything else. The Tour de France is obviously the second part of the year and it's the best preparation you could have for the Olympics. It's not only the biggest in our sport, it's the granddaddy, too. The Olympics is the third part. If it's not the biggest goal, it's one of the biggest for me.
Q. Considering your success in Europe this spring, have you raised the level of your performance? What's changed?
A. I have raised the level. I've never been super in the spring, and if I'm a better cyclist now, it's only because I'm growing up, I'm maturing. So many times, people have talked about why I haven't done this, or haven't won the Tour de France, or whatever. They forget I'm 24. Your best time in this sport is my future. Tony Rominger is 34. [Five-time Tour de France victor Miguel] Indurain is 31. It's only natural that me, at 23 or 24, should expect to get stronger, and the next four or five years, I will. It just makes sense.
Q. What about your racing has been more mature?
A. My tactics are better. The biggest thing is the patience. The biggest problem is forcing myself to be patient. The first thing you have to do when you're racing in Europe is to know everything, because everything is so specific, so specialized.
Q. Among the Tour DuPont, the Tour de France and the Olympics, is one more important than the others?
A. I'd like to say the Olympics, but it's hard to lay everything on the line for a one-day race, which the Olympics is. If I had the chance to choose, and I don't, I'd say it would be the Olympics. I've won the Tour DuPont. I can't win the Tour de France, not yet. I can win the Olympics. Now, I'm speaking of 1996. The Tour de France, I finished it only once. I'm not saying I can never win it. I think two or three years from now, maybe I can.
Q. With the Olympics in your home country, do you feel more pressure to win?
A. Not at all. Cycling isn't like many other sports. There are so many big races, and the Olympics is one of them. It's not like I'm a swimmer or volleyball player or pingpong player, where this is my one chance [in four years]. The next weekend after the Olympics, there's a World Cup race in England, then in Spain, and so on. The Olympics is a high priority, and I want to do well, and I want to go. I grew up in America, and the Olympics is important for that reason this year. ... I'm going there to win, like I did last year in the Tour DuPont. Winning is my objective.
Q. How important is the Tour DuPont to you?
A. It's one of my favorite events, if not the favorite. If it weren't, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't mind taking the time and relaxing in my new home in Austin. It means a lot. I'm an American, and you race before the American people. Winning it last year is one of the things that made my year.
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File/1995. As the defending champ, Lance Armstrong saysby CNBhe doesn't feel the pressure to win the Tour DuPont that he did in
1995. color. Graphic: Chart. color.