Yellow wakes me up in the morning. Yellow gets me on the bike every day. Yellow has taught me the true meaning of sacrifice. Yellow makes me suffer. Yellow is the reason I'm here.

Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.

Nobody needs to cry for me. I'm going to be great.

So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this: it's meant to improve us.

Your past forms you, whether you like it or not. Each encounter and experience has its own effect, and you're shaped the way the wind shapes a mesquite tree on a plain.

Regardless of one victory, two victories, four victories, there's never been a victory by a cancer survivor. That's a fact that hopefully I'll be remembered for.

Twenty-plus-year career, 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case.