Two weeks before the start of the 96th Tour de France, 1,870 days after his last pro victory, Lance Armstrong soloed to first place in the Nevada City (Cal.) Classic, a brief but brutal 40-lap circuit in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Asked afterward about the upcoming Tour, which starts Saturday in Monaco, the Texan poor-mouthed his own chances, pointing to Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer as clear favorites. After those two, he went on, "they got an old man like me to come around and pick up the pieces."
Levi Leipheimer doesn't need sunglasses at the poker table. The 35-year-old Astana rider, currently enjoying the best season of his career, seems to be under the impression that he will be fined $100 per facial expression.
Just because he's lean and ripped and far more fit than he's ever been at this time of year, Lance Armstrong won't necessarily regain the form that won him seven Tours de France. Just because those questions about his past have faded from the foreground, they haven't necessarily gone away. And while none of them care to be quoted, there are plenty of cycling people who wish he'd leave and not come back. He is a magnet for attention that might otherwise redound to more deserving riders -- guys like his Astana teammate Levi Leipheimer, who on Sunday clinched his third straight victory in the Amgen Tour of California, but whose next mention in this story is more than a thousand words away. But give Armstrong this: Three-and-a-half years after his retirement, two races into his comeback, he has plunged an IV full of Red Bull into the arm of a sport sorely in need of a pick-me-up. By his mere presence in the peloton, the 37-year-old Texan makes pro cycling an infinitely more interesting
Grim news for gossip rags everywhere: Lance Armstrong confirmed Tuesday that he is, in fact, coming out of retirement. The immediate result, of course -- aside from a defibrillation of interest in cycling in this country -- will be a marked reduction in late-night sightings of the Lone Star State's most prolific Lothario with celebrity blondes of various vintages on his arm. If Lance is going to take the start at the Amgen Tour of California on Valentine's Day, 2009 -- the first of five stages races he's reportedly eyeballing, culminating with the Tour de France next July -- he'll need to maybe be dial down the night life a bit.
Rhetorical question posed on the eve of the 95th Tour de France, which begins Saturday in Brest, at the tip of the Breton peninsula: Wouldn't it be surprising if cycling, for so long the poster child of pharmacologically jacked-up sports, turned out to be cleaner than, say, the NFL, or the NHL, or Major League Baseball?
From Rock Racing, the only U.S. Pro Continental team that travels with its own stable of podium girls, comes this breaking news: team owner Michael Ball has had an epiphany! On Tuesday, Rock announced plans to adopt "an aggressive internal team anti-doping program," such as those employed by Slipstream, High Road, CSC, Astana and others.
ALBI, France -- I was among the score or so of reporters skulking around the lobby of the Novotel in Montpellier on Friday, hoping extract a quote from embattled race leader Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank. (The crafty Dane gave us the dodge; officials of the Danish Cycling Union, apparently, can relate). Sharing the hotel with the Rabos was Team Astana. While we loitered on the lookout for Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov emerged from the dining room. With a total of 30 stitches in his knees, he made his way across the lobby with the stiff-legged gait of a man with advanced arthritis. It was clear that the podium was beyond his reach.
Two weeks before the start of the 96th Tour de France, 1,870 days after his last pro victory, Lance Armstrong soloed to first place in the Nevada City (Cal.) Classic, a brief but brutal 40-lap circuit in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Asked afterward about the upcoming Tour, which starts Saturday in Monaco, the Texan poor-mouthed his own chances, pointing to Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer as clear favorites. After those two, he went on, "they got an old man like me to come around and pick up the pieces."
Levi Leipheimer doesn't need sunglasses at the poker table. The 35-year-old Astana rider, currently enjoying the best season of his career, seems to be under the impression that he will be fined $100 per facial expression.
Just because he's lean and ripped and far more fit than he's ever been at this time of year, Lance Armstrong won't necessarily regain the form that won him seven Tours de France. Just because those questions about his past have faded from the foreground, they haven't necessarily gone away. And while none of them care to be quoted, there are plenty of cycling people who wish he'd leave and not come back. He is a magnet for attention that might otherwise redound to more deserving riders -- guys like his Astana teammate Levi Leipheimer, who on Sunday clinched his third straight victory in the Amgen Tour of California, but whose next mention in this story is more than a thousand words away. But give Armstrong this: Three-and-a-half years after his retirement, two races into his comeback, he has plunged an IV full of Red Bull into the arm of a sport sorely in need of a pick-me-up. By his mere presence in the peloton, the 37-year-old Texan makes pro cycling an infinitely more interesting
Grim news for gossip rags everywhere: Lance Armstrong confirmed Tuesday that he is, in fact, coming out of retirement. The immediate result, of course -- aside from a defibrillation of interest in cycling in this country -- will be a marked reduction in late-night sightings of the Lone Star State's most prolific Lothario with celebrity blondes of various vintages on his arm. If Lance is going to take the start at the Amgen Tour of California on Valentine's Day, 2009 -- the first of five stages races he's reportedly eyeballing, culminating with the Tour de France next July -- he'll need to maybe be dial down the night life a bit.
Rhetorical question posed on the eve of the 95th Tour de France, which begins Saturday in Brest, at the tip of the Breton peninsula: Wouldn't it be surprising if cycling, for so long the poster child of pharmacologically jacked-up sports, turned out to be cleaner than, say, the NFL, or the NHL, or Major League Baseball?
From Rock Racing, the only U.S. Pro Continental team that travels with its own stable of podium girls, comes this breaking news: team owner Michael Ball has had an epiphany! On Tuesday, Rock announced plans to adopt "an aggressive internal team anti-doping program," such as those employed by Slipstream, High Road, CSC, Astana and others.
ALBI, France -- I was among the score or so of reporters skulking around the lobby of the Novotel in Montpellier on Friday, hoping extract a quote from embattled race leader Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank. (The crafty Dane gave us the dodge; officials of the Danish Cycling Union, apparently, can relate). Sharing the hotel with the Rabos was Team Astana. While we loitered on the lookout for Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov emerged from the dining room. With a total of 30 stitches in his knees, he made his way across the lobby with the stiff-legged gait of a man with advanced arthritis. It was clear that the podium was beyond his reach.
This will be a rushed dispatch: I arrived late to this ancient city in the southern Alps as the result of some travel misadventures that I will share later this week (suffice it to say that the doors of a train closed on my fingertips while a French conductor met my pleas with an impassive stare that reminded me of Merseault from The Stranger).
Friday's flat 200-km Stage 6 through wine country came down to another riotous mass sprint taken, surprisingly, by Tom Boonen, a Belgian of Quickstep-Innergetic who much prefers to be escorted toward the finish with a more orderly lead-out than he was provided. But Boonen ham-and-egged it, Robbie McEwen-style, for his 10th win of the season, his first of this Tour. Say goodbye to the sprinters for a while. On Saturday the boys must get over a serrated colossus called the Col de la Colombiere. Boonen, Thor Hushovd and their ilk will be more concerned with making the time cut than winning the stage.
Yes, Tuesday's Stage 3 into Compiegne featured an electrifying finish, with race leader Fabian Cancellara of Team CSC schooling the sprinters, throwing down a vicious acceleration 700 meters from the finish line, then holding off the muscle-bound likes of Erik Zabel, Tom Boonen and Robert Forster. To me, the biggest story of the day was not Cancellara's breathtaking speed at the finish, but the stately, unhurried, club-ride pace set by the peloton in the hours before the thrilling denouement. This was the slowest stage in recent memory. As I will explain later, that's a good thing.
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