Lance Armstrong back in the saddle

Lance Armstrong, winner of the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, has said he intends making another comeback at the age of 37. Armstrong, who clocked up his famous victories after being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, wants to win the famous French endurance race again. He chose to make his announcement, not on the sports pages, but in the latest edition of Vanity Fair.

His reasons are threefold - to be the oldest competitor to win the Tour de France, to raise cancer awareness and to put to bed accusations that he won his seventh tournament in 2005 while on a blood booster drug.

It is unclear quite how he is going to achieve this objective. At present he has no confirmed team, no confirmed entry to the race and nothing more concrete than an interview in the magazine. And he appears to be expecting some resistance for the sport’s governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI). He said on Tuesday that if his (soon to be created) team were refused a place in the 2009 race, he would appeal directly to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He said: "I’ve already put a call in to him."

Armstrong’s decision to re-enter cycling is a welcome diversion from his private life. Since splitting up with singer Sheryl Crow (pictured with Armstrong), to whom he was engaged, he has had a number of high-profile flings, one with Goldie Hawn's daughter Kate Hudson. In the October issue of Men's Journal magazine, he talked of the reputation he had gained off the saddle. "The fact is that if you are riding your bike five, six, seven hours a day, you are not a sex champion. You’re just not. You have fatigue, low testosterone, and a lower libido. But you know, I never got any complaints."