Hits are for squares?

When fellow journalism post grad student and sport blogger, Josh Pettitt, came up with the idea of having a ‘best sports icon of the noughties’ blog debate, I wanted to do something different.

Who is a viable, yet thought-provoking candidate, I thought? After considering Ronnie O’Sullivan with his marvelously-idiosyncratic approach, and (the original, portly, R9) Ronaldo, I decided this was not an accolade to be given to someone whose greatness must be explained in detail. It must be fairly self explanatory.

It is for this reason that I feel the greatest sportsman of the naughties is seven-times Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong.

His achievements in cycling are well documented, as are his past medical struggles; yet there is a suspicion, due to cycling’s endemic doping problems, that he is somehow undeserving of our esteem.

Firstly, rather than extoll his illustrious, yet well documented career, I feel I need to snare this elephant in the room, shoot it, and use its tusks to murder anyone still pedaling this pathetic, xenophobic myth.

Lance Armstrong is undoubtedly the most tested athlete in the world. So why hasn’t he been caught?

To my mind the only answer is: he’s innocent. High profile doping cases such as Marco Pantani and Ivan Basso have tarnished the name of the sport, but the practice is by no means uniform. The only real evidence to suggest Armstrong dopes is his imperiously-consistent form. Oh, and the constant whining from the French that this yank dare beat them over the Alps and Pyrannees.

The second argument against his coronation as the noughties’ best sportsman concerns his team.

For anyone unfamiliar with road cycling, the Johan Bruyneel managed US Postal service team (which later became Discovery), held a masochistic-like dominance during Armstrong’s reign.

Super domestiques (a cycling term meaning blokes who bust their lungs for their leader, only to by dropped in the final miles and finish last) like George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Roberto Heras, and Floyd Landis, many of who went on to be team leaders themselves, would take turns at the front of the peleton, turning the screw under which their competitors crumbled.

From this launch pad, with his rivals cracking, Lance would launch. The fittest men on the planet attacking each other on the world’s steepest mountains in one its most tactical sports is, at its best, unrivaled in drama. In this, Lance was king.

Surely then, this team advantage negates any claim of Armstrong’s individual greatness? Not quite.

Just as Mark Cavendish has proved he is currently the fastest man in road cycling despite needing his team to get there, Jan Ullrich, Lance’s closest competitor for most of his career, was also backed by the flashy T-Mobile team which delivered his own Maillot Jaune in 1998.

Although his team were an inexorable facet of his dominance, the Texan was still chosen as the best: the man capable of converting all this team work when the final explosion to the line was required.

His status as an icon can hardly be quarreled with either. As active in his charity work as he ever was in the saddle, his story from 40% prognosis to legend is one of the most remarkable in modern sporting history.

If, on top of his seven tour wins and remarkable 3rd place comeback this year at the venerable age of 37 (despite being ordered not to attack team leader, Alberto Contador), you are in need of any more convincing, here are my top three Armstrong career moments.

1) “The Look”
At their best, there are few sporting occasions quite as dramatic as the top road cyclists in the world attacking each other on a steep climb. In 2001, Lance Armstrong was looking for his 3rd tour win. He looks his career nemesis, Jan Ullrich, in the eye in a display of concrete self belief before annihilating the German’s Tour de France aspirations for another year.

2) Off Road
2003, Tour de France Stage 9. Armstrong and ace climber Joseba Beloki are chasing Kazakhstani, Alexander Vinokourov. Beloki’s tyre glue melts under the intense speed and 50 degree heat of the day and what follows beggars belief. It may seem like it gives Armstrong an advantage, but try riding through a field on a finely tuned road bike and see how, if by any miracle you don’t crash, it affects your race momentum. This is true bike-handling class.

3) Sestriere
In 1999, this was one of the first times the world had seen Armstrong’s post-cancer form. He simply blows the field away, eventually winning the tour by a staggering 7mins 36secs.

Here are the other candidates for greatest sporting icon of the noughties:
Roger Federer by Josh Pettitt
Ryan Giggs by Alain Tolhurst
Usian Bolt by Mike Brown
Michael Schumacher by Tom Victor
Zinedine Zidane by Rob Goodman
Shane Warne by Thomas Mooney
David Beckham by Will Gilgrass
Cristiano Ronaldo by Joe Curtis
Adam Gilchrist by Nick Moore
Henrik Larsson by Vincent Forrester