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Lance Armstrong is the guy that I would put up there as one of my heroes. He's done something that no one else has done and when you put into it what he overcame, it's absolutely unbelievable.

I was a fan of Lance Armstrong, and I remember watching him win the Worlds in '93 in Oslo.

Lance Armstrong has a 17th-century, 15-foot Spanish fresco of the crucifixion hanging on the wall of his Austin mansion. This doesn't mean - and some of you Armstrong acolytes might want to sit down for this - that Lance is Jesus.

I realized I was never going to be Lance Armstrong. And in biking, if you want to make money, you have to be the best.

Olympians are the product of the Movement, and to get them to the stadiums, pools and playing fields, it takes the actions of legions of people who might not be Olympians.

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.

That period afterwards, just hating being the winner of the Tour de France, hating cycling, hating the media for asking me questions about Lance Armstrong.

What is learned on the athletic field is not forgotten, nor are the lessons of character that are forged there ever lost. Consider the contributions in the field of public life, business, law, medicine, and the military of those who actively participated in athletics.

Athletes are sort of part of the community at large. They have to be dedicated to what they do, and go through lots of peaks and valleys. And there's a lot of training that goes into their careers. It's a struggle. Very dramatic.

The sad thing is that I know no athletes' names. I am not a sports girl at all.