Lance Armstrong wins fifth championship title

PARIS -- Sipping champagne to celebrate, Lance Armstrong won his hardest but sweetest Tour de France title Sunday, a record-tying fifth straight victory that places him alongside the greatest cyclists ever.\nThe 31-year-old Texan and Spanish great Miguel Indurain are now the only two riders to win the sport's most grueling and prestigious race five times in a row, a record Armstrong plans to break next year.\nSavoring his feat on a largely processional final stage past distinguished Paris landmarks, Armstrong sipped from a flute of champagne and toasted his achievement with a "Cheers!" as he rode, wearing the overall leader's yellow jersey that he had so ardently coveted.\n"It's a dream, really a dream," Armstrong said in French after climbing the podium while "The Star-Spangled Banner" rang over the Champs-Elysees. "I love cycling, I love my job and I will be back for a sixth."\nThe indefatigable Armstrong overcame illness, crashes, dehydration, team and equipment problems and uncharacteristic bad days during the 23-day, 2,125-mile clockwise slog around France to win by his smallest margin, 61 seconds over five-time runner-up Jan Ullrich of Germany.\nArmstrong shared the podium with Ullrich and third-place finisher Alexandre Vinokourov, holding their hands above his head in a fitting tribute to the two men who battled him to the end.\nArmstrong's victory hardly resembled the previous four, when he demoralized rivals by dominating in lung-burning mountain ascents and super-speedy time trials. He had never before won by less than 6 minutes, even in 1999, three years after undergoing surgery and chemotherapy for testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain.\nA perfectionist, Armstrong said the closeness of the victory was already motivating him to come roaring back in 2004.\n"The other years I won by 6, 7 minutes. I think it makes it more exciting and sets up an attempt for number six," said Armstrong, the leader of the U.S. Postal Service team. "Before the Tour started I was very confident about winning. But before next year's Tour, I won't be so confident."\nHe said this victory had humbled him.\n"It makes me appreciate this victory and the other victories more because you realize the best form and the best conditioning are not a given," said Armstrong, who favors the Tour above all other races and prepares meticulously for it.\nThe intense rivalry between Armstrong and Ullrich, the 1997 Tour winner, turned the race into a gripping drama, unlike his previous four victories when Armstrong was virtually assured of winning days before the finish on the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees.\nBut this year, he only sewed up his win in a rain-soaked time trial Saturday when he managed to stay upright on a slippery road while Ullrich skidded and crashed.\nSo action-packed was this Tour that Armstrong was prepared for the unexpected, even Sunday, on the largely processional final stage.\n"If a plane landed in the race I wouldn't be surprised," he said before setting off from the Paris suburb of Ville d'Avray on the 92.4-mile ride through streets packed with cheering spectators, many waving American flags.\nFrance's Jean-Patrick Nazon wept after winning the stage in a fierce final sprint. Australian Baden Cooke was second, earning enough points to win the green jersey as the Tour's best overall sprinter. For a record-tying sixth time, Richard Virenque of France won the pink polka-dot jersey as the Tour's best mountain rider.\nBut it is the yellow jersey that counts the most, and Armstrong proudly wore it every day since July 13, a week into the race.\nHe got a congratulatory phone call from Postmaster General John Potter shortly after crossing the finish line.\n"We think that Lance really, and the team, showed courage and determination like never before," said Anita Bizzotto, a senior vice president of the U.S. Postal Service. "We're extremely proud of him."\nBesides Armstrong and Indurain, just three other riders have won the Tour five times, but not consecutively. They are Belgium's Eddy Merckx, and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault. If Armstrong doesn't win a record sixth title, the question of who is the best will long be debated.\n"Armstrong's courageous, a fighter. Somebody who perseveres until the end," said Hinault, whose wins came in 1978-1979, 1981-1982 and 1985.\n"You have to do like him to beat him. He's certainly a star, but I don't know if he's a superstar. It's a new generation of riders. They have radios, they work more closely in teams. It's a different era," he said.\nIndurain said he still views Merckx as the greatest.\n"He competed in virtually every cycling competition, whereas Armstrong really only focuses on the Tour," Indurain said.\nThe Spaniard, who held the Tour in an iron grip from 1991-1995, said Armstrong would be hard-pressed to win six.\n"Of course it's possible. But every year it gets more difficult, and he'll face some tough rivals," he said.\nUllrich, returning from two knee operations and a ban for taking amphetamines, entered the race saying he didn't expect to win. But when it became evident Armstrong wasn't at his best, the German and other key rivals pressured the Texan as never before, attacking him relentlessly on grueling mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees.\nUllrich was most impressive in a time trial July 18, when he sliced a whopping 96 seconds off Armstrong, who had never before been beaten by the German in a race against the clock on the Tour.\nArmstrong wilted in scorching heat that day in the south of France, hanging onto second place but losing about 11 pounds. His performance prompted speculation that at 31, he was too old to win again.\nBut Armstrong stormed back three days later on a mist-shrouded 8.3-mile ascent to the Pyrenean ski station of Luz-Ardiden, one of the Tour's hardest climbs. Armstrong recovered from a fall, caused by a spectator's outstretched bag that caught his handlebars, to roar past Ullrich, who sportingly waited for him to get back on his bike. Other than a victory in the team time trial, it was Armstrong's only stage win of this Tour and marked a turning point. From then on, Ullrich was chasing Armstrong's lead.\n"At the start of the climb, I knew that that was where I needed to win the Tour," Armstrong said. "At the finish I was confident that that was enough."\nArmstrong said that in previous years, his preparations for the following Tour began almost immediately after his victory celebrations. Not this year.\n"This Tour took a lot out of me," he said. "I need to step back from cycling and from the races and relax a little bit and focus on 2004 in due time"