Champion weighs family vs. sport

PARIS — Looking a trifle peaked, Robin Williams trudged through the lobby of the Hotel de Crillon, his right arm dangling, his gait lopsided.

"How's your head?" a French acquaintance said in English.

The actor put both hands to his head, to make sure it was still attached to his shoulders. He had not ridden a bicycle all the way around France. He had merely celebrated the victory of his buddy, Lance Armstrong.

As Armstrong has been trying to tell us this month, the Tour de France is all about suffering. Apparently, the pain continued the morning after the 23-day loop of France ended, although Armstrong was said to be well, preparing to rush home to see his three children.

There is one form of pain Armstrong does not tolerate easily, and that is homesickness, absence from his three children. It may define how long he keeps riding.

"In three months, they change so much," Armstrong said Saturday. "I become desperate, they are so far away. I'm not prepared to do that again."

We hear this family mantra from politicians, entertainers, business leaders and athletes, maybe even a journalist or two.

Armstrong, on the other hand, seems to work at being Mr. Mom when his wheels are not spinning. Last September, he picked up the phone one morning while he was home in Texas, making breakfast for his children in the home he maintains near his former wife, Kristin. In his news conferences, it seems quite clear that he misses his children.

"Having said that, I think a cyclist can adapt his schedule and live on both continents and prepare on both continents," Armstrong said Saturday.

He may do this dance for two more years. He seems committed to two years of high-level suffering because the Discovery Channel did not sign a two-year contract to sponsor a cycling team that counts Lance Armstrong among its alumni.

Like any sane person who has just pedaled around France, Armstrong is saying he is in no mental condition to commit for the 2005 Tour. But it will kick in.

Of all cyclists, Armstrong seems to have gone over to the other side, where pain is pleasure. There is something almost monkish about these cyclists, like pilgrims flagellating themselves on the long march to Santiago de Compostela or some such holy place.