ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA — The statement wasn't as absurd as it sounded. A journalist here, looking over the crowd that had gathered, said to Lance Armstrong, "It looks as if Jesus Christ is going to cycle."
"I've been called a lot of things in my life," Armstrong replied, "but not Jesus Christ. And I don't know that he rode, either. He can do a lot of things, apparently, but I don't know that he rode."
Armstrong is back, and with a vengeance.
The man who closed his unparalleled career in 2005 is back to the cycling peloton and spoke for 65 minutes in a wide-ranging news conference on everything from doping to impending fatherhood, from riding bicycles with presidents to wanting to ride with soon-to-be presidents (Barack Obama, Armstrong would like to hear from you), from surviving cancer to how he will attack the meandering roads of South Australia in this week's Tour Down Under. Armstrong is 37 now, still with an edge to him.
Taylor Phinney, the up-and-coming American cyclist who competed in his first Olympics in the Beijing Games, knows what this means.
"Lance likes to have a lot of fun training," Phinney, 18, said. "But when he needs to go fast, he goes fast and that's that."
In the years Armstrong has been away, cycling has become a sport teetering on a series of doping cases, as one cyclist after another admitted guilt or was found guilty, including 2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis, another American.
So it was unexpected when Armstrong, who battled doping suspicions and accusations partly because he seemed to win so effortlessly, announced last fall that he would return. Very few pro cyclists compete at the elite level in their late 30s, let alone after a 3 1/2 -year layoff.
Armstrong's plans include the Amgen Tour of California next month; the Giro d'Italia in May, considered the second-most-prestigious event on the calendar; and the Tour de France in July. His Astana team -- Armstrong says he is taking no salary -- is led by 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and 2008 Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer.
Armstrong's story is well known. After recovering from testicular cancer that had spread to his brain, he began devouring cycling's most revered event, the Tour de France, by, as he put it, training better, preparing better, being a better athlete, being a better survivor. Cancer patients worldwide grabbed on to Armstrong's story and cheered.
