Lance Armstrong

By Joel Stein

That which does not kill Lance Armstrong only serves to give NBC more fodder. Using John Tesh music and a Cybill Shepherd lens, the network could have filmed a whole docudrama to tell the story of cyclist Armstrong, who came back from testicular cancer to win the Tour de France twice--only to be smacked down by a car on a lonely French road just weeks before these Olympics. He fractured a vertebra in his neck that day. "We were in the middle of nowhere," he said. "The next car to come by was my wife an hour and a half later." At least she didn't run him over.

Armstrong's cancer helped reshape his body and turn him into a much better cyclist. So would his neck injury spur him on for the Olympics? "The accident affected my training, but I'm fit enough," Armstrong said before the cycling time-trial race. "I don't want to use that as an excuse." And he didn't. Armstrong got the bronze in the trial, won by Russian Viacheslav Ekimov, who races with Armstrong on the U.S. Postal Team. It was a great race. But Armstrong's is such a rich, heartwarming tale that the race results seemed almost an afterthought.

--J.S.