There have been several dominant athletes in certain sports over the years. Andre Agassi winning 49 tournaments on the tennis courts. Wayne Gretzki winning three Stanley Cups on the ice. Tiger Woods with 10 major tournaments won on the golf course and Michael Jordan with six NBA titles on the basketball court.

Lance Armstrong said these players were personal inspirations as he crossed the tape for the final time winning a record seven straight consecutive Tour de Frances; more than any other rider in the tour’s 92 year history.

The Tour de France is one of the top races in cycling and Lance has dominated it seven times. The race is separated by stages where the winner is determined by the time they finish in each stage not by how many stages they win. Although Lance was able to win 21 of 162 stages, he finished first by 4 minutes and 21 seconds.

His road to the top was difficult, facing tough competition such as Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso as well as the grueling bike course stretching thousands of miles. Not to mention the fact that he had to overcome testicular cancer almost ten years ago, which was nearly life threatening because it spread to his lungs and brain.

However there are still skeptics who criticize Lance’s accomplishments saying cycling isn’t the same as other professional sports such as football, and baseball. Skeptics say that blood doping occurs frequently in the sport of cycling, which is a technique for temporarily improving athletic performance in which oxygen-carrying red blood cells from blood previously withdrawn from an athlete are reinjected just before an event.

According to SportsIllustrated.com, Lance said in response to this, “I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles. But this is a hell of a race. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I’ll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets—this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it.”

Lance now wants to relax and spend time with his family, now that he has officially retired. Next year he’ll participate on the Tour as adviser to close friend Johan Bruyneel, the Discovery Channel team director.

He also wants to continue to work harder on the Lance Armstrong Foundation or LAF. This was founded in 1997, a year after being diagnosed with testicular cancer. It provides care and support for cancer victims and also raises money for cancer, through different community programs, like the sale of his Live Strong bracelets which raised over $13 million, twice as much as they originally planned, according to livestrong.com.

Lance Armstrong has accomplished great things throughout his cycling career, now he wants to accomplish even more after his career.