Lance Armstrong, wife to divorce

AP | 9/04/03

[kattracks]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and his wife have separated and will divorce.

Armstrong and his wife, Kristin, separated two weeks ago, soon after moving back to Austin from Girona, Spain. The couple is currently working on reaching a divorce settlement, while maintaining separate homes in Austin.

"The craziest thing is, we're closer now and better friends than ever before," Lance Armstrong said the Austin American-Statesman in Thursday's editions. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

Lance Armstrong overcame cancer on his way to five Tour wins. When he won his fifth straight Tour in July he tied the record held by Spain's Miguel Indurain.

"They tried, over the whole summer period, to reconcile," Jogi Muller, a spokesman for Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team, told The Associated Press. "But somehow, now in the month after the Tour, it just didn't work out. They tried probably for the children, for themselves."

Muller said that the couple had originally planned to stay in Europe through mid-September, but decided to return home early.

The couple, who have been married for five years and have three children, announced in February that they had been separated for a month. They later reconciled.

[EternalVigilance]

Sad, as all divorces are.

Prayers for them and especially for their children.

[Dante3]

The statement that they are closer than ever and better friends is truly weird. I was pecting them to say they did it for the children.

[L.N. Smithee]

"The craziest thing is, we're closer now and better friends than ever before," Lance Armstrong said the Austin American-Statesman in Thursday's editions. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

My first instinct at seeing this quote is to laugh and comment on what ends up on the boots of many ranchers in Texas. But if Lance isn't just blowing smoke for publicity purposes, this means their marriage wasn't built on friendship in the first place, which is sad.

[jern]

Bizarre

[Guenevere]

#4...sounds to me he should have put more effort in his marriage instead of his cycling abilities.....

...how much worth is in gaining the acclaim of the world, and losing your family, children....

...divorce has more than an immediate impact on children.....it's something they struggle with decades to come.

I guess I don't get it.....he has the will & drive to overcome cancer....win races that take not only skill, but perseverance and endurance and planning....

...but fail to put the same effort & drive into saving his marriage.....!

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Sad, but you could see this one coming from a few stages away.

Especially when his wife started airing her complaints on his fan website.

[AppyPappy]

The statement that they are closer than ever and better friends is truly weird.

it makes him sound gay.

[bart99]

What kind of complaints did she air on his fan website?

This isn't stunning news to me. With the divorce rates what they are in this country, I'm sure they had their 'irreconcilable' differences. We'll never know the real reason. Blaming it on his extreme training is convenient, but perhaps too convenient. I don't think he's had tabloid-type stuff going on. Perhaps their marriage was meant to end in their eyes.

[Smocker]

You said it, will and drive, it all depends where you direct those efforts.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

When I read in a SI article that Lance was a hard-core atheist and his wife a devout Catholic, I knew the marriage was doomed - clash of values and all that.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

What kind of complaints did she air on his fan website?

Sorry, I'd give you a link, but I only heard this on a local sports radio station report. Apparently she ran his website and suddenly started printing her feelings that he was too distant and that his schedule kept him away from the family too much.

Her complaints may have been valid, but publishing them on his website, if true, was a tad bizarre.

[kinghorse]

"The craziest thing is, we're closer now and better friends than ever before," Lance Armstrong said the Austin American-Statesman in Thursday's editions. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

Translated means:"French wimmen are ze bombay but those endorsements are nice and so help with keeping her living in a manner in which she is accustomed, therefore, we make nice for our adoring publik"

[CalvaryJohn]

Atheist loser.

[Rubber_Duckie_27]

She did indeed. My brother is an amateur cyclist and US Postal fan, so I periodically check the website. His wife's comments in her former column on lancearmstrong.com have been removed since before the Tour de France. She claimed that she shouldn't have posted such personal things on the internet. She hadn't written the column since last December anyways.

Essentially, she decided to give up her career for Lance's when they got married, and apparently she has changed her mind recently. She was not pleased about her and the kids living half the year in Europe and half the year in the US (so they could be with Lance while training in Europe).

This is surprising especially considering what they went through to have kids. They got together shortly after Lance went into remission, while he was still recovering from chemo...back when he wasn't a TdF winner, back when he was thinking of retiring from cycling all together.

He's a very wealthy man now...he's gonna get socked with alimony and child support. She is apparently from money herself, but I'm betting she gets more now...

[holdmuhbeer]

How can they be good friends and still want to divorce, this is bizarre.

[q_an_a]

His wife is the one that got him off his butt and back on his bike after cancer; my comment is comes form many articles and interviews from the past threee years.

What this shows is how easy it is for people to give up even when they have overcome adversity. The marriage vows are not taken seriously by too many people. If two people can tough out cancer they can change their actions to be of help to a mate. Saving a marriage is about not making the choice to quit, unless there is abuse.

I want to be happy is the problem not the solution. You are happy because you become mature in accepting life's changes. Too bad this is not a happy ending.

[50sDad]

My wife and I went through three years of counseling, and today are happier than we have ever been. It takes guts to hold on, and both sides have to want to work at it. But...

. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

...this is the bigest load of cow pie I have ever heard. This idiot should be clubbed to death with a baby seal.

[50sDad]

My wife and I went through three years of counseling, and today are happier than we have ever been. It takes guts to hold on, and both sides have to want to work at it. But...

. "We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage."

...this is the bigest load of cow pie I have ever heard. This idiot should be clubbed to death with a baby seal.

[L.N. Smithee]

The marriage vows are not taken seriously by too many people.

Indeed. If they were, we wouldn't be talking about gay marriage now.

People suggest that allowing people of the same sex to marry would destroy the institution. I say, gay marriage would only be the final stage of destruction of the institution that began with the concept of no-fault divorce.

To wit: Once marriage was easier to legally escape than a health-club membership, the differences between marriage and shacking up began to evaporate. Now that people with normal sexual inclinations can shack up and get almost all the benefits of marriage, gays can say, "Hey, we shack up too!"