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Still no gold Armstrong hopes fifth time is charm for Olympic gold
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Now 0-for-4 in three Olympics, cyclist Lance Armstrong doesn't sound all that concerned that his latest effort fell short. But make no mistake: The two-time Tour de France champion is pushing hard for a Sydney gold. "Winning the gold medal is a big objective," he said. "If it wasn't, why bother coming? If I didn't think I could win gold, I wouldn't have done it. It's a big priority, trust me." After placing 13th Wednesday in the road race -- a race he says he didn't really train for -- Armstrong is looking ahead to this weekend's time trial, where he's among the favorites. The time trial suits Armstrong perfectly. It's an event he can manage individually, unlike the frenzied road race, where 156 cyclists took off for a 5 1/2-hour "lottery," to borrow Armstrong's description. Jan Ullrich of Germany won it in 5 hours, 29 minutes, 8 seconds. In the time trial, riders leave a starting point at intervals and compete for the fastest times. Armstrong can compare his interval splits with times posted by earlier riders and know instantly if he needs to speed up. It's his specialty. His only stage victory in winning this year's Tour was a time trial. He used his victory in the Grand Prix des Nations time trial earlier this month as a springboard for Sydney. Since breaking a neck vertebra in a head-on collision with a car last month, Armstrong has found it hard to endure the seven- to eight-hour training rides needed to prepare for a road race. "Sitting on a time trial bike is not a problem," he said. Armstrong rode well in the 148-mile road race, but miscalculated his strike. After conserving energy all day he attacked with 1 1/2 laps remaining, only to discover that Ullrich, silver medalist Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan and bronze medalist Andreas Kloeden of Germany had already sprinted away. "It was harder than I thought," Armstrong said. "I waited too long, but that's the way races go. I thought the team was strong. We tried to put ourselves in a good place, and if it worked out, great." Teammate George Hincapie might have been able to chase down the break had he known about it. The Americans didn't realize Ullrich was pulling away from a lead pack because their radios were malfunctioning. "Whatever I would say, sometimes the riders would hear it and sometimes they wouldn't," said U.S. coach Jim Ochowicz, who saw the break on television monitors, but couldn't warn his riders. However, Ochowicz refused to blame the radios for the American performance. He noted that several teams didn't use them at all. "If the radios would have worked, it might have affected the outcome," he said. "We'll never know." Hincapie finished eighth, 1:26 behind Ullrich. Armstrong crossed the line three seconds later. Fred Rodriguez placed 34th, while Tyler Hamilton was 49th and Antonio Cruz 52nd. Hamilton and Armstrong are the only U.S. riders entered in the time trial, which is Armstrong's fifth chance at an Olympic medal. He did the road race in Barcelona and Atlanta, where he also competed in the time trial. Throw in the Sydney road race, and Armstrong is 0-for-4 at the Olympics. But in Atlanta, Armstrong was unwittingly suffering from cancer. After his diagnosis in October 1996, he took a year off from racing, then came back to win the three-week Tour de France in 1999.
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