Review: ‘My Comeback’, Lance Armstrong

This coffee table tome – titled Comeback 2.0 elsewhere in the world – certainly lives up to its subtitle of ‘up close and personal’, providing the reader with genuine insight into the year that Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, returned from retirement.

And what a year it was too, encompassing not only a podium finish at the Tour in his racing comeback, but also the birth of a child and his second ‘job’ promoting global cancer awareness and fund-raising through the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The book is essentially a photographic account of the twelve months following Armstrong’s decision to return to racing in September 2008, annotated with his own, frequently wry, commentary.

Elizabeth Kreutz’s excellent photography strikes a nice balance between journalistic and candid images, recording meetings with global heads of state, training and race preparation, and more intimate moments with his family and the seemingly ever-present drug testers. Kreutz’s images capture, amongst many other moments in time, Armstrong in the company of former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush (possibly the ultimate in jaw-dropping name-dropping); a shot of Ben Stiller posing on Lance’s bike, to which is attached a little-known tale of near-disaster (the actor broke the bike’s chain mere minutes before the team time trial, necessitating a rapid repair), and the great man’s obvious joy at the miraculous birth of his fourth child, Max (having been told by doctors during his cancer treatment that he would be unable to father children naturally again).

If you want Armstrong’s life story, this is not the book for you. (Pick up one of his previous two autobiographies, It’s Not About The Bike or Every Second Counts instead.) Or if you are looking for the full story of his 2009 comeback, there are a number of other books out there covering the 2009 Tour de France and Armstrong’s role in the race.

But if you are looking for a book which conveys both breadth and depth lacking in press coverage or other, unauthorised biographies, then this admirably fills in the background detail behind the big stories with the aid of some fantastic – and exclusive – photography. It is, at most, an hour’s leisurely read, but to judge the book purely on its length is to miss the point. My Comeback is a fascinating year-in-the-life record of one of sport’s most successful, intriguing and charismatic sportspeople. Well worth seeking out, particularly at the kind of discounted prices readily available online.

4 stars (out of 5)

For more information about the Lance Armstrong Foundation, or to make a donation, visit the Live Strong website here.