Once Lance Armstrong had agreed to a rare interview at his home in Northern Spain, e-mails on logistics from his staff in Texas referred to "the Armstrong-Campbell summit". This overstated somewhat the significance of the event, but not the sense of anticipation at meeting someone who, for some time, has been on my shortlist of indisputable sporting greats.
I had read the books, seen the films, got the replica cycling shirt. With my family, I had gone to Paris last year to watch him coming down the Champs Elysées to collect his fifth Tour de France title. Now I was boarding a plane to Barcelona with a message from Texas that, when I got there, I'd get a call with the final details for "the summit".
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Once we settle down to talk at a long wooden table, we are swapping stories about George W. Bush, his fellow Texan. We agree that our politics are different to Bush's, but that the President is smarter, funnier and more likeable than the caricature. Even Sheryl, whose politics Armstrong describes as "way out Left", says that it's hard to meet Bush and not like him. I had assumed, because he and Bush were Texans and I'd seen pictures of them laughing and joking in the Oval Office, that Armstrong was a Republican. But he says his politics are "middle to Left". He is "against mixing up State and Church, not keen on guns, pro women's right to choose". And very anti war in Iraq.
