On September 24th the XTERRA USA Championship at Snowbasin Ski Resort will take place in Utah. Among the many competitors this year happens to be the seven time Tour De France Winner, Lance Armstrong.
23 years after doing any type of triathlon Lance Armstrong has signed up for the 1-mile swim, 20-mile mountain bike ride and 6-mile trail run without any expectations of winning it. Armstrong has been training for about eight months for this specific task. He will be among triathlon greats such as South Africa’s Stoltz, Josiah Middaugh, five-time national champion and Tim DeBoom, the two-time Ironman World Champion.
In February Armstrong again announced that he was leaving Tour racing permanently. This XTERRA triathlon event seems to be a sort of test run for Armstrong to see if it is something that he wants to take up in place of his Tour racing.
Armstrong came to Utah earlier this month to scout out the course. While he was here he biked and ran some of the trails with his friend and former XTERRA world champion, Jimmy Riccitello and former president of GOAL Foundation that sponsors the XTERRA championship, Mike Caldwell. Caldwell said he looked to be in great shape as he tore through the trails with ease on both bike and foot.
After ending the part of his career that he was most famous for, Armstrong is returning to his beginning. Armstrong may be an estranged triathlete but he is definitely not a stranger to the event. He first became a professional triathlete when he was 16 years old and was eventually ranked the No. 1 triathlete in the 19-and-under category. Even with his two decade long absence from the triathlon scene it seems that Armstrong could still be a force to be reckoned with.