Lance Armstrong retired from professional cycling on July 24th, 2005, barely minutes after winning his seventh consecutive Tour de France on the Champs Elysees in Paris, and almost fourteen years after he'd first raced as an elite cyclist. Fourteen years is a long time in any business, even longer when one considers Lance's aim was to always be the best - and to stay the best as a top athlete. But he achieved his ambitions in a way no-one could possibly have imagined when he first pedalled out into that big boys' peloton, way back in the summer of 1992. A stage-win in the '93 Tour de France, the World Championship, victories in the Tour Du Pont, Clasica San Sebastian, Fleche Wallonne…to name just a few. And then came that Hollywood-scrypted return to cycling after he beat cancer, with back-to-back victories in the Tour de France that may never be beaten. At one stage, in 2003, he even became popular in France…

I've been so fortunate to have followed Lance's professional career in its entirety, from his very first days with the Motorola team right up until that final podium in Paris in 2005 - and almost every important moment in between. Travelling quite literally to the four ends of the world to photograph him, I've amassed an archive of Lance Armstrong that outpaces any of the other great champions I've photographed in 25 years - and which probably outnumbers them all put together. This tribute to Lance has been a long time in coming to you, partly because of the mass of images that needed to be whittled down to a mere 200, partly because now is the more appropriate time to release a tribute to the great man. Never before has there been a cyclist like Lance Armstrong. And the likelihood is that there never will be again.

GW

Part 1 - The Early Days
Part 2 - The Comeback Year
Part 3 - The Tour Years