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IS Lance Armstrong the greatest modern sportsman? Roger Federer has redefined the art of the possible in tennis, combining athleticism, power, style and grace in a way that has never before been equalled.
Tiger Woods is a phenomenon, a golfer of such singular determination that he was able to win the 2008 US Open while in continuous pain and scarcely able to stand properly. Both Federer and Woods are extraordinarily consistent: they never tire of winning or of dominating their opponents, of coming back to do it again, season after season.
But neither Woods nor Federer has Armstrong's remarkable back story: the man who beats cancer and goes on not only to win the Tour de France, perhaps the most gruelling challenge in modern sport, but to win it seven times in a row, to the irritation and suspicion of his European rivals and disparagers. Surely, they say, this guy must be taking something: you can't win the Tour on sandwiches and Perrier water!
Armstrong's bestselling autobiography was called It's Not About the Bike. But for him, right now, it's all about the bike, and only the bike - because, at the age of 37, he is returning to take part once more in the Tour, which starts tomorrow in Monaco, as he seeks to test himself again in an event he once called a "contest in purposeless suffering".
But, Armstrong added, clarifying his remark, "for reasons of my own, I think it may be the most gallant athletic endeavour in the world. To me, of course, it's about living".
Armstrong retired in 2005, and since then has never properly settled, never quite found a natural rhythm to his life, an ease. From the outside Armstrong, at home in Texas, appeared to have everything he wanted: hardened achievement, relative youth, as much money as he could ever wish for, a settled family and the world's applause. But like many great sportsmen before him, he has discovered that life without the rituals and adrenalin rushes of high level competition can seem peculiarly empty.
The greater the sportsman, the less willing he can be to accept mortal limits and the harder it is to retire, to say goodbye. Who wasn't moved by the sight of an aged Muhammad Ali stumbling abjectly through his final fights? Here was a champ devoured by his own greatness who'd stayed too long in the ring.
Not every great sportsman is as self-aware as former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, who, knowing that his best was gone, retired this week with dignity. Is Armstrong risking indignity by returning to race in the Tour? Will he tarnish, like Ali in his final years, the memories we have of him?
For surely there is no way that he can win the Tour again or even be a contender after so long away and especially after he crashed in a comeback race in March, breaking his collarbone.
And yet, Armstrong never knows when he is beaten. He has the slightly crazed self-belief of the man who has stared death in the face and, for now, beaten it. "Anything is possible," he once said. "You can be told that you have a 90 per cent chance or a 50 per cent chance or a one per cent chance, but you have to believe, you have to fight."
Armstrong believes all right, and he will never stop fighting. It's about living. Wouldn't it be sweet if he won again?
Chance for England to rise from the Ashes
The Ashes series of 2005 was the most thrilling most of us can remember.
Two good sides collided at exactly the right time: England, with their four-man pace attack and expertly coached by Duncan Fletcher, were reaching their peak, while Australia, after a decade of dominance, were just on their way down, with many great players edging towards retirement.
That summer it seemed as if every second person you met was talking about the cricket, not least because the series was available on Channel 4.
With the game reaching new levels of popularity and with its own brash soccer-style superstars in Flintoff and Pietersen, the England and Wales Cricket board decided to chase the money.
Exclusive TV rights to home Tests were sold to Sky, thus excluding the elderly, the poor and the casual sports fan. The scheduling of home and away series became ever more relentless, to the detriment of the players' wellbeing and, in the case of Marcus Trescothick and Matthew Hoggard, their mental health.
The “celebrity” Flintoff was appointed captain in spite of being so palpably the wrong man for the job. A disastrous deal was done with the
now-disgraced tycoon Sir Allen Stanford. Coaches came and went. Meanwhile, England continued to lose matches and series, returning to their old, pre-Fletcher levels of mediocrity.
Now, with the Ashes series beginning in Cardiff on Wednesday, England have the chance to redeem the failures and drift of the past four years and make us fall in love with cricket all over again. Let's hope they take it.
Arsene Wenger's frugality
During this summer of excessive excess, as world football transfer records are broken and some players demand £200,000 per week, it's consoling to know that Arsene Wenger remains committed to his vision of the beautiful game — of refusing to pay outlandish transfer fees and developing young players. Wenger could have joined Madrid but, as he said this week, what “Madrid want to do is produce what I would call a spectacle of football, a spectacular team. But I believe that when it comes to creating a team and a squad there is another dimension that exists, and that is my way of thinking.” The right way of thinking.
