As one who is trying to survive cancer, it's almost inconceivable that not only did he do so, but also found the will to train long and hard enough to repeatedly win the most physically demanding sporting event in the world.
THAT, my friend, takes more strength, heroism, or whatever you want to call it than 99.9% of us will ever have...and if Clinton were to have pulled that off, I'd have to respect him just as much for having done so. Regardless of whom he might have left his wife for (if that's even true), it's irrelevant in light of the enormity of his personal accomplishments.
That is so true. At the end of the Tour today, the OLN announcers Phil and Paul were speaking about this. Paul said that when he went to visit Lance in his hospital bed in 1996, and saw him lying there bald and with only a 50/50 chance to even live, much less race again, he never could have imagined this day.
And Phil said it brings tears to your eyes to see this, while Paul had trouble keeping from tearing up.
Yes, Lance may not be a perfect man in his personal life (who is?), but he didn't have a father figure to emulate. He hasn't left his children, he is determined to be a part of their lives, unlike what he himself had as a child.
He and his mother were all alone, it was up to her to make a life for him, and she did it. I suspect that no woman he's met will ever measure up to his mother. He has often said she is his hero.