Author: Sally Jenkins

Publisher: Putnam Publishers

Date of Publication: June 2000

Born to a seventeen-year-old woman and abandoned by his father at a young age, no one ever thought that Lance Armstrong, a boy from a small town in Texas, would make anything of himself. When Armstrong was three, his mother remarried a "Christian" man named Terry Armstrong (the man who's name he uses), who abused Armstrong and his mother both physically and verbally. At the age of thirteen, Armstrong entered the Iron Kids Triathlon and won, which spurred his interest in cycling. Eight years later, in 1992, Armstrong competed in the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. In 1993, Armstrong placed first at Oslo, Norway, becoming a world champion at 21.

On Thursday, October 4th, 1996, after working for years to gain his status as a world renowned cyclist, Lance...