July 28, 2003 PARIS (AP) -- His life-and-death battle with cancer may be one of the secrets of his success, U.S. cycling star Lance Armstrong said Monday, a day after winning his record-tying fifth consecutive Tour de France crown.
Armstrong told a gathering of cancer specialists and survivors of the disease that winning the 23-day, 3,427.5-kilometer (2,125-mile) clockwise race around France was easy compared to the agony of lying sick in a hospital bed, fighting a devastating illness.
"Drawing on that experience helps, and is perhaps one of the secrets of winning the Tour," Armstrong said. "It is an honor to win the Tour as a cancer survivor."
Armstrong spoke at a press conference held before an advisory group of cancer specialists and survivors to U.S. President George W. Bush.
Armstrong was treated in 1996 for testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs. He returned to competition and won the first of five consecutive Tour titles in 1999. He has used his celebrity to help raise money for cancer research and survivors.
LaSalle D. Leffall, a physician and chairman of the cancer advisory panel, said that while the medical community is beginning to view cancer as a chronic disease that can be managed in the long term, Europeans tend to consider a cancer diagnosis "a death sentence."
"But we need to celebrate living beyond cancer," he said. "Those who are diagnosed with the disease should no longer bear the stigma of fatality."
Around the world, 22.4 million people either have or have had the disease.
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