Armstrong reinvents herself again as retired champ

BOISE, Idaho (AP)—Kristin Armstrong remembers standing outside her University of Idaho sorority in 1994, watching triathletes race past in a local competition. She’d been a high school swimmer, but biking and running, too?

“I thought, ‘What are those people doing? They’re nuts,”’ Armstrong said.

Armstrong soon turned herself into one of those triathlon “nuts,” finishing the 1999 Ironman in Hawaii. When her joints broke down due to osteoarthritis in 2000, she quit running to become the world’s fastest female cyclist.

Now, the 2008 Beijing Olympics time-trial gold medalist has retired from professional cycling after winning a world championship title last month. Rather than relax, however, the 36-year-old Armstrong is discovering she must reinvent herself yet again, this time by finding something she’s still passionate about as she exits the competitive spotlight.

“My world has been crazy,” she said, citing offers following her 55-second world championship win in Mendrisio, Switzerland, on Sept. 23. “Somebody came up and asked, ‘Have you ever thought about politics?”’

Armstrong, who also won the 2006 world championship time trial in Austria, figures she has two years to take advantage of endorsements that have accompanied the fleeting fame of being the best at a relatively obscure event: women’s road cycling.

United Dairymen of Idaho billboards across her home state show her riding with a chocolate milk flame in her wake. She’s also working with the Idaho Potato Commission and doing anti-drug events with school kids.

Armstrong has hired a speaking coach, for motivational talks like Idaho’s 2010 commencement address. She’s planning cycling clinics and is even toying with the idea of a broadcasting career, like Bob Roll, a former U.S. professional bicycle racer who covers the Tour de France on cable television.

“If a woman can commentate in the NFL, why can’t a woman commentate for the Tour de France?” she said. “I have the medals. Now, I have to make that happen.”

Some athletes happily retire and spend their days hunting, fishing and doing the occasional trade show. Armstrong—young, strong, still motivated—hardly seems a candidate for the bass boat or sports sentimentality circuit.

Armstrong’s friend, Eric Heiden, a U.S. Olympic speed skater who won five gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics, said moving beyond competition can be difficult even for those who made the transition look effortless.

Heiden followed skating with professional cycling, when he raced in the 1986 Tour de France; he’s now a surgeon in Park City, Utah, a job he said gives him some of the same thrill as skating around the Olympic oval or pedaling the French Alps with Greg Lemond.

But Heiden didn’t touch his racing bicycle for two years after retiring. The memories were too good—and too painful.

“You get addicted to that stuff in your sports, and all of a sudden, you don’t get that runner’s high anymore,” he said. “When you get out in the real world, you don’t get that same immediate response.”

Armstrong said winning the world championship in Mendrisio, Switzerland, a month ago helped erase the sting of finishing fifth at the 2008 worlds, after which she felt compelled to race another year. Now, she’s not entertaining the idea of a comeback.

“Don’t even put it in my head,” she said. “Really. I’m at peace.”

This winter, Armstrong said she’ll be skate skiing in the Idaho mountains. Her husband, Joe Savola, bought her a new mountain bike that her coaches forbid her to ride before the world championships; Armstrong said she might do a race or two on the dirt.

Still, nobody should expect to see her on her road bike in local competitions. The idea of racing at anything but her best doesn’t work for her.

“My expectations would be too high,” Armstrong said. “I’d rather not face that.”