Lance Armstrong And Steven Hawking Go Into A Bar...

Lance Armstrong is in the news again. The coverage, naturally, focuses on his inspiring third place in the 2009 Tour De France after a four-year lay-off. Also his rivalry with the winner, Alberto Contador, and his plans to ride for a new team, sponsored by RadioShack. Nowhere does it mention his striking resemblance to the reknowned physicist and author, Dr. Stephen W. Hawking.

I missed it myself until they were both on the front page of The New York Times, four years ago. Dr. Hawking is often called, “The smartest man since Einstein” and Lance Armstrong is the greatest bicycle racer since Eddy Merckx, ”The Einstein of the Two-Wheelers.” The former is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (a post once held by Sir Isaac Newton) has twelve honorary degrees and made the headlines four years ago by disproving one of his own theories. Talk about a personal best. The latter shared the front page by winning the world’s most famous bicycle race, The Tour De France, an unprecedented sixth time.

Not that either is a slave to the work ethic. They both enjoy robust social lives. Dr. Hawking has been married twice, fathered three children, has one grandchild and, in 2007, experienced weightlessness aboard the same kind of flight used to train astronauts. Lance Armstrong had a long relationship with singer/composer, Sheryl Crow. Though not the death wish implicit in dating, say, Amy Winehouse, she did write, “All I Want To Do Is Have Some Fun” and no one can dispute that, as a group, rocks stars are high maintenance.

What makes their liveliness both admirable and remarkable is that they are alive. Each man has overcome a devastating and potentially fatal disease. Stephen Hawking has suffered for years from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis – also called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” because it felled the mighty Yankee at the age of 37. No mere ball player, they called him, “The Iron Man,” because he held the record for playing consecutive games. The Iron Man. Yet, here is this weeny physics major from Oxford, who not only survives, but, paralyzed up to his nose, fathers kids and scientific revolutions with equal aplomb. Lance Armstrong was also stricken young, but with an advanced case of testicular cancer. He underwent aggressive chemotherapy and recovered before he won the Tour de France even once. More than survival, however, links Hawking and Armstrong. It's the way they use wheels to overcome their limits. By using them to beat the odds, the competition and, ultimately, themselves, they achieve a nobility in their mobility.