Lance Armstrong, wife to divorce

AP | 9/04/03

[kattracks]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and his wife have separated and will divorce.

Armstrong and his wife, Kristin, separated two weeks ago, soon after moving back to Austin from Girona, Spain. The couple is currently working on reaching a divorce settlement, while maintaining separate homes in Austin.

"The craziest thing is, we're closer now and better friends than ever before," Lance Armstrong said the Austin American-Statesman in Thursday's editions. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

Lance Armstrong overcame cancer on his way to five Tour wins. When he won his fifth straight Tour in July he tied the record held by Spain's Miguel Indurain.

"They tried, over the whole summer period, to reconcile," Jogi Muller, a spokesman for Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team, told The Associated Press. "But somehow, now in the month after the Tour, it just didn't work out. They tried probably for the children, for themselves."

Muller said that the couple had originally planned to stay in Europe through mid-September, but decided to return home early.

The couple, who have been married for five years and have three children, announced in February that they had been separated for a month. They later reconciled.

[bicycle thug]

Sadly, this is too common among bicycle racers. I also quit racing because of the shear time drain training incurs. But many people whom I have seen quit did so because their wife or girlfriend were angry or stressed out because their man was gone so often and for such a long time.

I wish this former couple the best, and they have my deepest sympathy their marriage has a flat tire.

[mtbopfuyn]

That's because everytime he went home, she was there to bitch and moan about the house not being clean, the beds don't make themselves, the laundry is piling up... and LOOK at this living room! The DUST on the TV could gag a maggot!!!... Yeah, I'd have gone back to training too!

No, you can go back to training AFTER your chores are finished! And take out that stinking garbage!

[cyborg]

Correction: He should have taken some of that advance money and gotten some therapy instead. I suppose writing the book was a release BUT the time would have been better spent airing the dirty laundry to a therapist first.

[Robert_Paulson2]

I guess I don't get it.....he has the will & drive to overcome cancer....win races that take not only skill, but perseverance and endurance and planning....

...but fail to put the same effort & drive into saving his marriage

---

You know, there is an outside possibility that SHE wanted a divorce... and he did not... and that he is putting the best face forward on this he can... for the kids.

we just don't know.

[wardaddy]

I've learned another strange thing being around troubled folks.

Children of any age from infant to elderly will always "need" the love of the parent more than vice versa.

...and as we all know, the need for a parent to be loved and appreciated by the child is pretty damn strong in it's own right.

Abandonment by either parent but particularly boys by daddy is probably the largest single emotional issue in our society today.

I have seen grown hardened men capable of being very nasty and predatory themselves, break down and cry over the fact that mom or dad abandoned them.

[Belial]

People have lost all sense of the obligation to society to remain married.

Nonsense. All people didn't have wonderful relationships before divorce lost its stigma.

Before divorce was common, people simply became estranged and ignored and abused each other. Now they just leave.

[ironman]

A couple of thoughts. Lance's statements don't seem all that strange if you understand people at his level are experts in denial. He denied/delayed he had a medical problem in 1996 and it almost cost him his life. When his body is telling him to ease up, he denies it and pushes to the max. He might have been very arrogant as a kid but he was damn good and could back it up. It seems though he has matured into quite a man. At his level the amount of time and energy required to be the world's best in a Very hard sport is almost beyond comprehension. I'm sure Kristin felt like a bike widow.

[bicycle thug]

I'm sure she felt like second fiddle to two wheels too. The sad thing about that - be it true - is he won't stay in the game after he leaves the window of ability to take on the Tour De France.

For those who don't delve deeply into this aspect of the Tour: The tour is neither a young man's or older rider's gig. Those in their early and mid twenties haven't the experiance or mental tempering to win such a horribly demanding and torturous stage race. And as for those racing into their mid to upper thirties, they experience the dismay at the discovery of finding themselves out of gas at a point in the stage race where they once had a quarter tank remaining.

Perhaps when he is dismounted from the Trek and free to increase his percentage of body fat a year or so from now these two will rediscover what they once had together.

That would be nice to see.

[jlogajan]

Before divorce was common, people simply became estranged and ignored and abused each other. Now they just leave.

Heh.

[Weimdog]

I agree, she's nuts.

She knew exactly what she was in for. His JOB is riding bicycles all over Europe for 6 months out of the year. If she couldn't handle it, she never should have married him.

[Queen Jadis]

LOL

[not-an-ostrich]

I read where she laughingly spoke about Lance not being in U.S. when she became pregnant with the twins. I expect she was bitter he didn't at least stand beside her when she was inseminated(sp?).

[Queen Jadis]

what about the 28 year old girlfriend in SF then?

[WestPoint90]

Once you have a spouse your life stops being about you. That is what so many people get wrong. Marriage is an unconditional committment to an imperfect person. I knew going into it that my wife was going to disappoint me and be ugly, mean, and hurtful. I told her to expect that from me. Why? Because I'm human.

One thing I also told her to expect is that I would snap out of it. I would eventually take my eyes off myself and say the three most difficult things in the human language; I was wrong. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?

I'm praying for him. God has his heart. Lance just hasn't admitted it yet.

[BlazingArizona]

Essentially, she decided to give up her career for Lance's when they got married, and apparently she has changed her mind recently. She was not pleased about her and the kids living half the year in Europe and half the year in the US (so they could be with Lance while training in Europe).

Why do women have so much difficulty with the idea trhat men have careers they really care deeply about? It's not as though he abandoned the family to race, either: he made an effort to keep the family with him on the road - and this is his reward.

[Between the Lines]

What about the 28 year old girlfriend in SF then?

You mean in the girlfriend reported in this article:

Click the image to get the gossip.

As Star revealed earlier this year, Lance, 31, left Kristin, 32, the mother of their three kids, in February, telling her that he was in love with a 28-year-old woman from San Francisco.

What about her?

BTW, this is the only source I could find that could confirm your comment.

[staytrue]

I'm glad Martha Washington did not have your attitude or we would all be saying hail to the queen.

When greatness is within your grasp, you should take it and your spouse should be supportive.

[cherry]

"The world has bigger problems to worry about than concerning itself with the marital spats of one man among billions. "

that may be true, but just remember that the civilized world got that way by organized relationships(marriage), and the family where children could grow up safe and sound...

its the civilized world that presents athletes like Lance and all other celebrities the CHANCE to excell and become a big shot......

[Hank Rearden]

Maybe she just needs somebody whose brain is somewhat larger and more interesting than the minimum necessary to pedal a bicycle for 20 years. How boring.

[Brian Allen]

<< Look at #26 and let's see if you have the same attitude. >>

Yep. Same ".... no concept of the value of a covenant before God .... is pretty typical of modern American wymyn" attitude.

Plus a truck load of contempt for the star as source and/or authority upon which to base malicious gossip.