EP 77: The Rise and Fall of Lance Armstrong, Part One

This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Lance Armstrong, the only professional cyclist to win seven Tour de France titles...all before it was revealed more than a dozen years after his first win that he had been using performance-enhancing drugs in every single one of his Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005. This news was particularly devastating to those that had admired and supported Armstrong through his 1996 cancer diagnosis when he learned, at only twenty-five years old, that he had stage three testicular cancer and that the cancer had already spread to his lungs, brain, abdomen, and lymph nodes. To come back from what his doctor’s initially determined as a less than 50% chance of living - to not only survive that but to then go on to achieve not one, not two, not three - but SEVEN titles in what is considered by many to be the most difficult sporting event in the world - was just unbelievable. The only thing more unbelievable than his miraculous rise to the top...was that he had cheated and lied the whole way there.

Be sure to come back next week when we finish our coverage of this topic in a special second part episode!

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- Rachel and Leah