One of my boyhood sports heroes was Joe Montana. The 1981 NFC Championship game that concluded with "The Catch" by Dwight Clark was a formative moment. What I enjoyed about Montana was his quiet confidence that he would lead his team to victory. I recall a story from 49er offensive linemen Harris Barton about the Super Bowl XXIII victory against the Bengals. As some may recall, the 49ers were down 16-13 late in the game. As the 49ers got the ball back for their last ditch drive to win the game, the players were standing around during the TV timeout waiting for this do-or-die drive. The Super Bowl was on the line and everything depended upon a successful drive, and Montana turned to Barton and said, "Hey, isn't that John Candy in the front row?" Now that's a cool customer. Oh, last second touchdown pass to John Taylor. 49ers 20, Bengals 16.
Lance Armstrong is much the same. You just know that he will pull off something amazing sooner or later. Like athletes such as Joe Montana and Michael Jordan, in Lance Armstrong the will to win and the talent to achieve greatness have met in an almost perfect synthesis. Last night on the Science Channel (thank God for cable) they did a story on the science of Lance, both his body and his bike. Much like the great horse Secretariat, whose heart was unusually large, Lance seems to be a freak of nature. His body's ability to process oxygen is astounding, and his body, for whatever reason, seems not to produce lactic acid at the rate others' do, and he recovers from that acid "burn" faster than usual. But of course all of this would mean nothing if he was lazy. I watched Lance win the time trial yesterday, and it was a bitter sweet moment. It was inspiring to once again see Lance put his body to the test and display his excellence, yet bitter in that we will never see it again. Yesterday Phil Ligget on OLN hailed Lance as "the master of the race." Indeed.
Recent Comments