Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France Let's pray he gets saved. Articles / In The News Date: Jul 26, 2004 - 09:08 AM | |
American Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France on Sunday for a record sixth consecutive year. I want to thank all of you for praying. I found out Lance's step dad was a Preachers Kid but Lance is not a Christian. Let's pray he really finds Jesus in a personal way. Please read this story. He survived cancer but he really needs Jesus.  Lance Armstrong said: A Legend? I Would Rather be Remembered as a Dad By Alastair Campbell Armstrong is deeply suspicious of organised religion. He never knew his "so-called father", and he says that in all his 32 years, he has never asked his Mum, Linda, a single question about him. He was born with the name Gunderson, then his mother married the man who gave him his name. Terry Armstrong a preachers son, talked religion but used to beat Lance with a paddle and he was relieved when he walked out. "He was like me in that he got his name from someone else," Armstrong says. "His biological name was Love. But his Mom married a man named Raymond Armstrong, a preacher. It's weird, I've got his name, my kids have his name but I have never met him and I never want to meet him." His stance on religion is in marked contrast to his wife's ever more fervent Catholicism and the difference may have been one of the factors that led to their marriage breaking up. Armstrong believes it is possible to be a good person while not believing. "I think we all have obligations to be good, honest, hard-working, caring and compassionate," he says. "You have to try and it won't always be easy but you try your best. I do not believe .....
that because you are not prepared to submit yourself to a god or a higher being, that when you get to the end of the road, you will be sent down. I'm not prepared to believe that." The language of religion is never far away when Armstrong talks about his sport: sacrifice, pain and forfeit as the route to improving mind and body; sport as a calling with a higher purpose. In one of his two autobiographies, he said that life is a series of false limits and his job is to challenge them on a bike. I ask him to explain. "Cycling is one of the two or three toughest sports in the world. The Tour de France is the ultimate sporting event. I don't think there is a harder sporting event anywhere. Imagine a marathon and Formula One combined - that's what it's like. It's three weeks of agony and it's hard and it hurts and it can be dangerous and every single guy who does it is one tough person." Lance Armstrong's mom - emotional and proud  Linda Armstrong, mother of the champ, thought yet another win was only natural."Looking back, he was fast at everything, so it doesn't surprise me that this is the profession he chose," she said as her 32-year-old son, Lance, won his sixth Tour de France, the first rider to do it."Lance set a goal, and his goal was to win this Tour," she told The Associated Press. "Definitely, this is what he wanted."Linda Armstrong was 17 when she gave birth to her only child, and she raised him without a father. From his youngest days, she said, he excelled as a swimmer, a runner and a cyclist.Eight years ago, she watched Lance fight his way back from testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brains, leaving him with less than a 50 percent chance of survival."I'm emotional, it's a very emotional time for me," she said, beaming broadly.Par Excel-Lance: Armstrong Wins Tour De FranceParis, France (Sports Network) - American Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France on Sunday for a record sixth consecutive year and became the only rider to notch six career titles in cycling's premiere event.  Armstrong led since stage 15 of the race and did not relinquish the lead thereafter. The 32-year-old Texan, who won a total of five stages, finished six minutes and 19 seconds clear of second-place finisher Andreas Kloden of Germany. Italian Ivan Basso finished third overall, while German Jan Ullrich, the 1997 winner, finished fourth. Jose Azevedo of Portugal rounded out the top five. Tom Boonen of Belgium covered the 163 km final stage from Montereau to Paris (Champs Elysees) in four hours, eight minutes and 26 seconds to record his second career stage win. Frenchman Jean-Patrick Nazon ended second and German Danilo Hondo was third. Australian Robbie McEwen came in fourth and Erik Zabel of Germany ended the 20th stage in fifth place. As was reported by AnointedNews Death threats came in against Lance Armstrong.  Armstrong stayed out of harm's way on the final day and cruised to a 114th- place finish, 19 seconds behind Boonen's time. "I was lucky to get through all those fans," Armstrong said after the stage. Luckier than he knows: On Saturday, race officials admitted they had received death threats against the five-time champion."Threats were made against Armstrong," Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc said, refusing to discuss the content of the threats in detail but confirming that the US Postal team leader had been made aware of the danger."We now know that were good reasons to fear for Armstrong's safety," Leblanc continued. "Whether they were founded or not, threats were made." On Armstrong's 15.5-km time-trial to the summit of Alpe d'Huez -- just one of five individual stages won by the American at the 2004 race -- the 32-year-old Texan was flanked by an expanded security crew.While all riders benefited from a motorcycle escort to navigate the manic throngs of fans on Alpe d'Huez, Armstrong was shadowed by two other special-agent motorbike cops: one keeping a sweeping eye on the crowd just in front of Armstrong, and another posting guard from alongside the US Postal team car."With all those people, I don't think a time-trial on Alpe d'Huez was necessarily the right thing to do," Armstrong said at the mountain's top. "It was a little scary." | |
|
This article comes from World's Largest Prayer Board Annointed.net News http://www.annointed.net/ The URL for this story is: http://www.annointed.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=635 |