There’s no one else quite like him. And there probably never will be. The best cyclist ever, Lance won the Tour de France, an almost incomprehensible seven times from 1999 to 2005. But before he could do that, in 1996 he had to beat back a cancer that was supposed to take his life. Testicular cancer had spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain. Doctors told him he had no chance. But no chance were not words that had meaning for Lance.

He spearheaded the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which made a yellow plastic loop a statement of resistance and strength across the entire planet. It advocates for those living with cancer, funds research, inspires the cancer community to support each other.

Lance took a minor sports in America and turned it into a great national passion and pride. And he did it by struggling for years, alone on his bike, often in unforgiving weather, over terrain that most of us would view as hostile, when no one was watching, no one was cheering.

He inspired all of us who face a cancer diagnosis to search out the doctors who believe that we can live, to hold on to friends and family that stand beside us – and then to fight to prove the faith of those. After Lance, no one could ever again say it was too hard, the odds were too high, the fight already lost. Watch one of his recent interviews here.