The three champions

Once upon a time, they were rivals with Lance Armstrong.

While Lance clearly was the superior athlete over Jan Ullrich when they met between 2000 to 2005, Lance was the underdog when he came back in 2009 to challenge Alberto Contador.

Ullrich and Contador never went head to head and I doubt that Ullrich could have beaten Contador. But their rivalry, if it had happened, wouldn’t be as compelling compared to their rivalries between the Texan.

Ullrich won the Tour de France once and came in second 5 times. Brought up in the former communist state of East Germany, he was the naïve and reluctant superstar controlled by the people around him.While Lance was media savvy, Ullrich was the complete opposite. His battle with weight in the off season, his fling with recreational drugs, projected him as an immature talent who didn’t know how to deal with success.

Clearly, Armstrong knew how to handle the German and his handlers not only in the media but also during the races. Who could forget “The Look” when Armstrong feigned weakness in the 2001 Tour de France before humiliating Ullrich and his team TELEKOM?

Alberto Contador, on the other hand, was a different animal than Ullrich. He was younger, stronger and was as media savvy. Like Lance, he also had a certain arrogance in him. Like Lance, he also had a health problem (brain aneurysm) that almost killed him.

When Lance came back, he was already old by cycling standards. He also rode in the same team with Alberto. Cycling dynamics is different from other sports. It’s a team sport with an individual champion. With two potential champions in the same team, it was like the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe. Something had to give.

In the 2009 Tour, Alberto defied team orders and attacked, to the consternation of Lance and the team. Cycling ethics says that if a teammate attacks, you have to hold back. And that’s what Lance did. Or maybe, and although he didn’t say it, it was a convenient situation because Lance couldn’t keep up with Contador.

In the 2010 Tour, Contador clobbered Lance, who was also facing a federal investigation for fraud. He finally retired for good.

In 2006, Ullrich was involved with the infamous Operation Puerto and was forced out of the Tour. Ullrich kept denying that he used drugs and the investigation dragged on for six years. In the 2010 Tour, Contador tested positive for PED’s and like Ullrich, denied he took it unknowingly.

You’d think that the path of the three champions wouldn’t cross again but in the last 10 days, they did. And guess what, Lance came out victorious, again. The federal investigation came to an abrupt halt. Then a few days later, Contador was given two years, retroactive August, 2010. Then it was Ullrich’s turn to be convicted of doping, after six, frustrating years.

In the end, Ullrich admitted everything we already knew. Upon lawyer’s advise, he clammed up.Contador’s career isn’t over and he will be back this August.

As for Lance, he was glad that his ordeal is over. He said he’ll move on and continue his life as a father, a competitor and an advocate for cancer research. In other words, he won again. - THE FREEMAN