Armstrong wins 7th straight Tour de France
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-25 06:27

Cancer survivors, autograph hunters and enamored admirers pushed, shoved, and yelled "Lance! Lance!" outside his bus in the mornings for a smile, a signature, or a word from the champion.

He had bodyguards to keep the crowds at bay _ ruffling feathers of cycling purists who sniffed at his "American" ways.

Some spectators would shout obscenities or "dope!" _ doper. To some, his comeback from cancer and his uphill bursts of speed that left rivals gasping in the Alps and Pyrenees were too good to be true.

Armstrong insisted that he simply trained, worked and prepared harder than anyone. He was drug-tested hundreds of times, in and out of competition, but was never found to have committed any infractions.

"Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass for six hours a day," he said in a commercial for sponsors Nike in 2000.

Armstrong came into this Tour saying he had a dual objective _ winning the race and the hearts of French fans. He was more relaxed, forthcoming and talkative than last year _ when the pressure to be the first six-time winner was on.

Some fans hung the Stars and Stripes on barriers that lined the Champs-Elysees on Sunday. Around France, some also urged Armstrong to go for an eighth win next year_ holding up placards and daubing their appeals in paint on the road.

But this was the way Armstrong wanted to end his career.

"At some point you turn 34, or you turn 35, the others make a big step up, and when your age catches up, you take a big step down," he said Saturday after he won the final time trial. "So next could be the year if I continued that I lose that five minutes. We are never going to know."

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