The ‘Other’ Armstrong Is Bowing Out of Cycling in Style

Kristin Armstrong was thinking this on Wednesday as she stood on the podium in Mendrisio, Switzerland, and watched the American flag being hoisted in her honor. Go out on top. Go out with the anthem being played.

Armstrong, 36, is the accidental champion, the late bloomer who took to the sport because running in triathlons caused osteoarthritis in her hips and her doctor advised her to do something healthier, like cycle full time. She took him seriously.

On Wednesday she won the time trial at the world championship of cycling, to go with her gold medal in Beijing last year. Now, as planned, she will retire after the world championship road race on Saturday.

“There are already people who are talking about my comeback for 2012 in London,” Armstrong said, alluding to the next Summer Olympics.

If she did come back, she would be following the pattern set by her illustrious namesake, Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times from 1999 through 2005, then retired, only to come back to finish an impressive third in the Tour this year, at 37. Kristin Armstrong has her own reasons for retiring now.

“Being female, it’s important for me to have a family,” she said in a telephone interview. She and her husband, Joe Savola, have planned this retirement, which was announced weeks ago.

While there is still time, the American public can get to know this champion who burst into prominence so belatedly.

First of all, she is not related to Lance Armstrong, or to his former wife, Kristin Richard Armstrong. She did not go into cycling to emulate her namesake. She just happened to discover she was very good at this sport, once she concentrated on it.

In 2004, Kristin Armstrong finished eighth in the road race at the Olympics in Athens but was not used in the time trial. On Wednesday, a day made for crowing, she refused to say the American coaches were wrong in 2004. She had already followed that by winning the world time trial in Italy in 2006 before taking that gold in Beijing.

Lance Armstrong has not won an Olympic gold medal — well, at least not yet. He won a bronze in 2000, while recovering from a fractured vertebra in his neck, from a collision with a car. There is always drama surrounding Mr. Lance.

“Lance lives a life I’m not at all familiar with,” Armstrong said in 2008. “No movie stars or million-dollar bank accounts for me.”

On the only day the two Armstrongs have ever met, he displayed a major sense of collegial gallantry.

“I really admire him for the work he does against cancer,” Kristin Armstrong said Wednesday.

“I met him after a criterium at Ojai in 2005,” she added, referring to a race in California.

She and a female friend joined the autograph mob around Armstrong, and her friend persisted in saying, “Lance, Lance, Kristin Armstrong is here.” Armstrong picked up his head and quickly volunteered that he had heard a lot about her. And this was before her world championship or her gold medal.

Kristin Armstrong grew up in a military family, lived 10 years abroad, attended high school in Japan. She thinks she learned adaptability — in language, customs and food — that serve her well on the cycling circuit.

After graduating from the University of Idaho, she was working in an advertising agency in Boise when her doctor said her triathlon days were over. But she did so well on the bike that T-Mobile stunned her by offering her a two-year contact to join its touring team.

“When she became a cyclist, I thought it was cool,” her husband said in 2008. “When she became one of the best, I thought to myself, ‘There’s something special in this woman.’ But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this.”

On Wednesday, Armstrong finished in 35 minutes 26.09 seconds over two laps of the 16.65-mile (26.8-kilometer) course, defeating Noemi Cantele of Italy by 55.01 seconds.

“Over all, this has been my best season,” Armstrong said recently. “I haven’t put as much stress on myself. Sometimes we do that and it takes a lot of the fun out of the sport. This year I really just enjoyed the sport and my team.”

She has everything planned. She will represent Idaho Potatoes, Blue Cross and United Dairymen — “three products I use and believe in,” she said. She appears to be as adept as her namesake at sticking to her talking points. Now, just as her country discovers her, she is going out, as a world champion.