Former Tour de France winner loses fight against cancer
Laurent Fignon has passed away after losing his fight against cancer, French television has announced.
The Frenchman twice won the Tour de France during his career. He was 50.
Fignon disclosed in June 2009 that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. It is said to have started in his intestine and then spread further through his body. He continued to commentate for French television on the Tour de France this summer despite a tumour affecting his vocal chords.
“I don’t want to die at 50,” he said, earlier this summer. “All I know is that my cancer isn’t evolving. I’m still fighting.”
Fignon won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984, and a total of nine Tour stages. He also won the 1989 Giro d’Italia. He famously finished second in the Tour in 1989, famously losing to American Greg Lemond in 1989 by the slimmest margin ever in Tour history, a mere eight seconds.
Fignon was diagnosed with cancer in May 2009, and he revealed his illness it shortly thereafter. He had been very open with the press and public about his illness. In his book, “Nous étions jeunes et insouciants” (We were young and carefree), he confessed to having doped during his career. Later, he discussed the possibility that his cancer was linked to his doping.
The Schleck brothers, Denis Menchov, Tyler Farrar, David Millar, David Zabriske and Mark Cavendish will lead an all-star cast at the 2010 Vuelta a España, which clicks into gear August 28 in Sevilla.
Andy and Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank), Tour podium-man Menchov and sprinting ace Cavendish are among the confirmed headliners for the Vuelta, which will be celebrating its 75th anniversary this summer.
Javier Guillén, director general of the Vuelta, said the 2010 edition will have a “magnificent level of participation.”
“We doubt Contador will come. He’s just finished the Tour, which was very hard for him,” Guillén said. “History has shown us that it’s difficult for the Tour winner to come to the Vuelta, even though Carlos Sastre did it (in 2008), something that we’re still grateful for.”
Other big names expected to start include Tom Boonen (Quick Step), Oscar Freire (Rabobank), Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Filippo Pozzato (Katusha).
127 HOURS is the new film from Danny Boyle, the Academy Award winning director of last year’s Best Picture, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. 127 HOURS is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston’s (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65 foot wall and hike over eight miles before he is finally rescued. Throughout his journey, Ralston recalls friends, lovers (Clemence Poesy), family, and the two hikers (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) he met before his accident. Will they be the last two people he ever had the chance to meet? A visceral thrilling story that will take an audience on a never before experienced journey and prove what we can do when we choose life.
Emergent Fitness has been involved with the Fight Gone Bad Fundraiser from the beginning. For the first FGB the gym was still in my basement so a few of us met at Bacon Elementary and did the workout there. For FGB II we partnered up with Front Range CrossFit and traveled to Aurora for the fun. FGB III and FGB IV saw more than 30 athletes show up at the original EmerFit gym and we raised thousands of dollars.
In this workout you spend one minute at each of five stations, resulting in a a five-minute round after which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. This event calls for three rounds. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of ‘rotate,’ the athletes must move to the next station immediately. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower, where each calorie is one point.
The workout 3x:
1 minute max reps of Wall Ball
1 minute max reps of Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
1 minute max reps of Box Jumps
1 minute max reps of Push Press
1 minute Row for calories
We have a trial run for Fight Gone Bad at Emergent Fitness this Friday. I don’t know if I’m tough enough, I know Sellers isn’t.
Where is that damm soapbox of mine?? Ahh, there it is.
I’m healthy again.
That’s kinda a misnomer if you know anything about my past. I have wrecked my body through climbing and mtb biking in more ways then I have time to list today. And after coming off a broken foot, I have been training again to get back to climbing hard. I’ve been feeling pretty good, actually taking some good climbs again, and then a friend I work with sent me a blog link.
It was to a friend who had a liver transplant from his brother. His brother had given 60% of his liver so that my friend could live. Then his brother died…
Suddenly my stupid, petty little climbing thing didn’t seem that big a deal.
His faith really impressed me. This is a man who knows his brother died because he loved him. He was willing to pay the ultimate price to help his brother, and he did. It reminded me of a story I read often in the Bible. The one about this guy names Jesus who died for people who He didn’t know, but was still willing to pay the ultimate price for.
I am not a religious nut.
I am a man who has seen what God can do in your life when everything falls apart because God was there walking with me through every part of my accident and recovery.
I am just like every other climber I know. I am a dirtbag at heart. And I know that God made me that way for a reason.
Stories like this always put my drive in check for a moment in time; I will stop and look around at things with great clarity.
I remember laying on the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery to cut my leg off, and being able to hear the wind blow in a window down the hall, I could hear the drips in my IV, and the curtains around me moved and rubbed back and forth so loud, I could tell when someone was approaching. That clarity comes very few times in life, and I’ve learned to appreciate the calm before the storm. The one thing I know for absolute is that there will be storms, and the better I have a grasp on the fact that I have no control, the better I do.
I’ll always be driven when I climb, God made me in such a way, that when I am climbing I am happy.
But today, I’ll take one less lap on the boulder, one less lap on the trail, to be at home and spend the time with the people that really do matter.
One of the other things that being so banged up teaches you is that the things I accomplish on rocks pale in comparison to the relationship I have with God and my family.
Those things are the things I want to be remembered for.
And those are the things I think about when I’m outside doing what I love.
