|
|
Sunday, September 5, 2010 |
Serving Seguin and Guadalupe County since 1888
|
|
|
Marketplace
Sections
Services
Service Center
|
|
 |
|
Seguin foursome headed to Tour de France
Published June 28, 2009
SEGUIN — Lance Armstrong’s story of perseverance in overcoming personal obstacles has touched a lot of lives — maybe more than one would think.
For instance, during his record run of seven consecutive Tour de France wins, he inspired Frank and April Rippel not to settle for the live telecast, but to travel overseas to support the Central Texas product in person.
“This will be (trip number) five, and it’s mainly because of Lance Armstrong,” Frank said. “We jumped in on his second win. He had already battled cancer, he had come back and he was so impressive going up those mountains.”
Armstrong also played a role in the aspirations of another duo — Diana Strom and fiance Ric Landvatter. When Strom learned that the champion cyclist would be returning to the race in 2009, she thought that being there would be somewhat of a gift to herself for achieving a lifelong goal, as she had just graduated from Texas Lutheran University after returning to school in her 40s.
Furthermore, she thought that such a trip would mean a lot to Ric, who knows all about Armstrong’s battles away from the bike.
“I got this wild idea that I wanted to go to the Tour de France because I’d never been before,” Strom said. “Lance Armstrong was riding again for cancer awareness and Ric has cancer.”
Diagnosed with terminal cancer three and a half years ago, doctors had given Landvatter two years to live. But Ric had an affirmation that he says came partially from watching Armstrong’s fearless trek up and down the mountains of the French countryside — that life is supposed to be lived to the fullest, and not even cancer can change that.
“I’ve battled back, and with the Lord’s help, we’ve got it in remission and I’m feeling good,” Landvatter said. “I’m going to get 10 or 15 years, so I’m very positive about that and I think Lance has been a very inspirational person to me as far as it doesn’t matter what you have — keep on living.”
What’s more, Landvatter has started biking to build up some stamina and has even started doing some motivational speaking to spread his message of hope.
“They rate the cancer on a one to nine scale and mine was a nine, so it was the most aggressive type out there,” Landvatter said. “And I went through chemo — stage four — and I’m trying to tell people that just because you have aggressive stage four cancer doesn’t mean your life is over, you can still go out and go to the Tour de France and travel and still live.”
Taking his own advice, Landvatter decided that he and Strom should pack up and prepare for the trip, with his fiance suggesting they team up with Frank and April, the two being seasoned veterans of the tour. After the Seguin-based foursome teamed up, however, another thought emerged — perhaps the folks back home would like to follow along with their journey.
“I talked to Diana and said, ‘Well, you’re in college, you girls have to write a lot,’” Frank joked. “Let’s describe our experiences to the Gazette and see what they think about us maybe writing something and sending some information back.”
The group would later agree to write weekly correspondence piece to be published in each Sunday edition of the Gazette Enterprise for the duration of tour. Strom said she hopes that such a partnership will allow readers to get a feel for what it’s like to be present at the most famous bicycle race in the world — and might even include the interview of a lifetime.
“It’s going to be our personal story, what we have done during the week,” Strom said. “It’s more a personal interest story about going around France in this motor home.
“My goal for this trip is to get a personal interview with Lance Armstrong and I want our picture taken with Lance. What I understand from Frank and April is that since he’s not really riding to win, that he’s been more available to spectators, and (if it happens) we’ll let the newspaper in on it.”
Coincidentally, April has already served as a source of information for the French media. During one of the Rippels’ previous trips, she gave one publication what they deemed to be the story of the summer.
“April was on the line and all dressed in yellow and a journalist came by and said, ‘You must be for Lance because he’s all in yellow too,’” Frank said. “April says, ‘Oh, we know Lance,’ and she says, ‘Oh you know Lance? Can you give me some good stuff on him?’ So April says, ‘Well, how about when he was 17, he was doing a triathlon and his mom was with him and he showed up at one race and he didn’t have his insurance card, and his mom had to drive all the way back to Austin to get it because we wouldn’t let him race.
“It was a big scoop — Lance did triathlons, and April’s the one who broke it.”
Frank says that he and April have been privy to several awe-inspiring moments during their previous trips and hopes the group will be able to share similar experiences with a larger audience through their weekly correspondence.
“One morning just before they started, Lance Armstrong was in the yellow jersey beside the polka-dotted jersey, the green jersey and the white jersey in Liege — they were just all lined up there,” Frank said. “The press was there taking some photographs and the rest of the world was behind them — these are the leaders, and we were there just so close, taking photos and yelling, ‘Lance! We’re from Seguin, Texas!’
“And he looked right at us and gave us the thumbs up.”
A photograph of this scene is available on the group’s newly-formed Web site, www.fourletour.com . Updates will be available on that site throughout the race, as well as on Twitter (www.twitter.com/fourletour) and MySpace (www.myspace.com/fourletour).
The first in a series of articles from the group is scheduled to appear in the July 11 edition of the Gazette Enterprise. The Tour de France officially begins on July 4.
Share |
Save |
Mail |
Print |
Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|