Lance: The Official Lance Armstrong Thread

http://www.velonews.com/article/91132/afld-drops-armstrong-case

 

According to Johan and Lance on Twitter the Giro will be televised in the US on Universal Sports. I looked in my cable schedule and it does not show yet for this weekend. I guess I'll be too busy getting manhandled by the Tan Ribbon of Death anyways. (Painverse, Hurtverse) this Saturday.

 

Team RadioShack

Its offiial now. Lance is coming back in 2010 with Team RadioShack.com!

http://www.velonews.com/article/95712/ahead-of-armstrong-s-promised-announcement-of-his-new-team

Guess that now besides the Nike sneakers, Giro helmets and Oakley Shades we'll need to get black and yellow batteries, wires and charges.....

The big question now is: who else will be in the Team/ Obviously Bruyneel. Most likely Popo and Levi. Lance also spent a heck of alot of time talking to Andy Schleck in the peloton this year.

 

RadioShack Partners With Seven-Time Tour de France Winner Lance Armstrong to Form New

RadioShack Partners With Seven-Time Tour de France Winner Lance Armstrong to Form New Cycling Team in 2010

 

I figure Andy is the only one who can beat Alberto. If Lance brings him onto Team Radio Shack will they get Frank too? Lance would have to work for him though so he won't be trying to win.

 

He gave an invite to Brice Felliu.

I think Andy & Frank are happy where their at. Saxo seems like a really good team for them and everyone really works well together.

Andy will beat Alberto next year since AC won't have the Astana powerhouse behind him.

 

Contador rips Armstrong

The nasty ungrateful little pr!ck:

"My relationship with Lance is non-existent. Even if he is a great champion, I have never had admiration for him and I never will," the Spaniard told a news conference in Madrid.

Full article on velonews.com:

http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/96109/contador-rips-armstrong

And after Lance worked as a good teammate not attacking him and staying on the wheel of his rivals on two of the earlier stages where he attacked.

Lance - nail him in 2010!

He aint getting batteries from RadioShack any time soon!

 

Idiot!!!!! Young, Dumb and full of......himself!

With out the team astona power house and surgical tactics he will never be where he is at. Lance's leadership is obvious through out the race and he benefited. To be ungrateful like that is just lame! Lance did not say a single negative word about him.

He was never really great and never will be. I'm cheering for Lance for 2010 TDF all the way!:wave:

 

that they don't get along should be no surprise if you watched the tour.

from lance's twitter this afternoon:

lancearmstrong: Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I'd drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn't win.

lancearmstrong: hey pistolero, there is no "i" in "team". what did i say in March? Lots to learn. Restated.

 

I'm very confused now...

On Versus a couple of days ago (Saturday possibly?) they played a short, human interest blurb about AC and his brain aneurism from a few years ago. He was taken down by it for around 8 months, during which he read Lance's book It's Not About The Bike and he said he was very inspired by it.

:?: :?: :?: :?:

Weird. Did I misunderstand? Or were they talking to a different AC?

:?: :?: :?: :?:

- shud

 

Dear Lance Lovers...

I am also a Lance fan, just to set the record straight, but he has always been known as a not-so-nice guy.
I suspect he(Lance) and Bruyneel were plotting to get Lance into the yellow jersey on stage 7 when he was a mere 4 seconds down. If that's the case, the whole team would have then worked for him to keep him there and Contador would not have been able to attack his team mate while he's in yellow. On the other hand, attack before he's in yellow and you jump past Armstrong to set yourself up to be next in line for the jersey. It'd be tough to convince me that Lance and Johan were nice to Contador or helped him at all.
Lance could not attack Contador at any time because he would have looked like a putz!
I suspect Contador saw what was going to be coming down and rode this Tour for himself as he felt he needed too.

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Taken from another site after being translated from Spanish:
A Tale of solitude
http://www.diariosur.es/...ntador-20090727.html
It happened on Thursday, a few hours before the Annecy ITT. Contador came downstairs to the entrance of the Palace of Menthon, the luxurious Astana hotel. The Tour was on. He looked right, then left. Nobody, nothing. No Astana cars or helpers. Cold sweat. Quick time check. Where are they? The hotel is several kilometers from the start. There he was, the leader of the Tour, in flip-flops, bag in hand and alone. He went to the hall looking for an answer: Armstrong had ordered the helpers to go pick up his wife, kids and friends to the airport.
Contador left his room last because he was the last one starting the ITT. Armstrong had managed to take away his means of transportation. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Hot flashes, he was rabid. He called his brother Fran. He came to pick him up by car and took him to Annecy in a private vehicle. He left last and finished first. His best victory. In the ITT. In solitude. The same way he has won his second tour.
Contador’s toughest climb was not recorded in images. It was narrated by others. It was fought in the hotel and the bus: during one stage, Armstrong sat his guests at the very back of the bus, right in Contador’s usual seat. One more provocation. Armstrong to the luxury suite. Contador to sleep with Paulinho, the only ally. Same deal during the entire tour. Mouth shut, listening to Armstrong’s jabs: “It doesn’t take a Nobel prize to figure out what happens with side winds”. Contador didn’t reply in the hotel. He did on the road. He attacked in the first mountain finish in Arcalis. Without permission from Bruyneel, Armstrong’s DS. That night the Astana hotel was a funeral. Red eyes from the Texan (anger? crying? not sure). The first cyclist that stood up to him. And he did it in silence."
Not in the article – apparently LA did not attend the team dinner in Paris to celebrate Contadors victor[/FONT][/FONT]
This was his Tour to win! I'm glad he won although I would have liked to have seen Lance in yellow.

 

Dam...I hate how the American media portrayed Contador as suck a jackass.

Contador did pull Lance up stage 20. IMO...without Contador...LA would not be in third.

 

Agree. We only seem to hear Lance's side of things.
Apparently, Contador didn't have a lot of support from his team or Johan Brunneel since Lance's comeback.
Here are a few examples:
1. Contador didn't have any input in selecting his teammates for the Tour, Lance did.
2. It seemed that Brunneel preferred lance over Alberto, hence the orders to drive the pace on the stage when Contador missed the split. Can you imagine the opposite scenario?
3. Contador's manager not being able to stay in the same hotel as the team due to lack of rooms, while Lance's entourage did.
4. The ultimate insult: in the last time trial, with the Yellow Jersey on the line, the team director (JB) not riding the car behind the leader, but riding behind Lance Amrstrong. I have been following the Tour for over 20 years and I had never seen such a thing.

So to all of you, who were very quick to bash Contador, Lance should have been more humble from the beginning, and accept the fact that Contador was the strongest rider, and Bruneel should have had the balls to establish from day one who the team leader was.
And by the way, all of those comments about Contador not winning the Tour if it wasn't for the team, I wonder if you watched the same race I did. Contador was second in the first TT, won the last one, and was the only one who rode away in the mountains.
On the other hand, Lance is the one who would not have been in the podium if it wasn't for the Team TT.
Finally, Contador made some comments about not admiring Lance as a person, not as a bike racer.
And finally, after all is said and done, Lance's performance in this year's Tour was very impressive. It takes a lot to be able to get back in the sport after almost 4 years and perform at such a high level.
He has my admiration for that.

 

I've been a fan of Lances for many years and I remember reading all the shitty things that happened to him. In his second year he was also left at the hotel and had to catch a ride. (they said they thought he'd gone ahead). There were also the 3 times a day for testing (where some of the guys were never even tested at all). His food being misplaced. His bike being tampered with on numerous occasions. Spectators spitting on him and in his face. And lots of other things he had to overcome. Did they leave Alberto? I have no doubt. Is he a teamplayer? Nope, never has been, never will be. Is he the fastest man in the world on a bike.Yep, no doubt about it. He overcame a lot of adversity and proved himself and I have nothing but admiration for him as a bicyclist. I'm sure as he ages he'll learn to be more accomodating and hopefully friendlier.

 

Pilas, I agree with what you've said except for one thing.
I read that Bruyneel picked the team and that Levi and Lance really pushed to get Horner but that Contador wanted a spanish rider(who's name escapes me) to be the final selection. Lance and Bruyneel used to pick the team but apparently that wasn't the case this time.

 

Have been and always will be a devoted Lance fan!

That said... to guys whose performance and attitude I really liked at this tour were Andy Schleck and Fabian Cancellara. Fabian killing it early on the climbs in order to lead out his teammates Andy and Frank. Andy playing with AC and Lance up Ventoux for the benefit of his brother Frank. Will be my favorites after Team Radionshack.

 

The Spanish rider Contador wanted was Benjamin Noval, who was not included in the final selection.

 

contador is funny lookin and lance had part of his manhood removed... I think its a tie.

 

I am not a Lance Armstrong fan. I was riding and racing before he started winning the Tour, and the guy was a ....insert metaphor here. Cancer actually humbled him a ton. So, anyone who thinks he's a jerk now, you should've known him before cancer. BUT, cycling ability aside, Lance Armstrong is now and always will be more marketable than Contador will ever be, on both sides of the Atlantic. If Contador was smart, he'd be riding the Armstrong wave. Since last I checked, money controls the world, and that is why Armstrong was and is more privileged than Contador and everyone else in the peloton. It's not right, but that's the way it is.

 

From Chris Horner:

SALT LAKE CITY - Tuesday was when it all started to go wrong for me. I woke up in Aspen, Colo., to clear skies and beautiful temperatures. It was going to be a great day to ride six hours with Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, my Astana teammates, as we continued training for the Tour de France. There was only one problem; I still hadn't gotten my ticket to France, which was the real sign of a securing spot on the Tour team.
The tickets were supposed to be there the Friday before. When they didn't show then, I still didn't worry because I was told the team would have them to me on Monday. Then Monday came and went, and there were still no tickets. Now both my girlfriend, Megan, and I were starting to worry and wonder what was going on.
Instead of getting ready to ride like I normally would have, it was becoming clear that things were not right, and that preparing my suitcase for the drive home should be first on my list of things to do Tuesday morning. When bad news comes, a fast exit is generally in order, since hanging around and watching others prepare for the race I wouldn't be riding only adds insult to injury.
About halfway through folding my clothes and reorganizing my suitcase, I got the call -- from Johan Bruyneel, our team manager at Astana -- that I had been waiting for. As I had feared, his message was that I wasn't going to the Tour this year. Many reasons were given, but all I really heard was that there would be no Tour de France for me.
Politics seemed to once again be what was holding me back from doing what I love, racing at the top of my sport. Johan gave me many reasons why he couldn't take me, and all of them made sense to me from a political standpoint, but absolutely no sense from a straight up who deserves to go standpoint.
So I asked if he would be willing to release me from the team if I could find another squad to pick me up for the Tour. I thought he would say no but I had to try. After I asked many times, he finally said he wouldn't release me, which meant that I really would miss the Tour this year.
Knowing there was no reason to get upset with Johan, I hung up the phone after thanking him for what I knew was a hard call to make, and for the fighting I knew he had done on my behalf with sponsors and riders on the team to get me on.
Like everything you do in life, politics exist even in cycling. And, like in every other aspect of life, they limit the power people have to make decisions. As a result, Johan's hands were tied.
It was always going to be a difficult decision, with so many interests weighing in on the nine precious roster positions.
One spot would go to a Kazakh, for the sponsors. Dmitriy Muravyev got it.
Four would go to our top GC riders -- Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden -- all of whom have finished on the podium at the Tour.
Two went to Haimar Zubeldia and Yaroslav Popovych, who were selected early as support riders.
The eighth spot went to Gregory Rast, a big guy who could help tackle the flats.
That left one final spot -- the spot I had believed to be mine.
But instead, Alberto, whom the team was being built around, wanted to take one of his "boys" with him as a support rider. So Sergio Paulinho was in and I was suddenly the odd man out.
After the call I did what I always do when things are going badly; I rode my bike.
The next day, we got everything loaded up, and I thanked Lance and Levi for their efforts to get me on the team, since they both did more than their fair share of lobbying on my behalf. I thanked Lance once again for putting me up in a great place in Aspen to train with him and Levi, not to mention the great racing in Nevada City, Calif., last Sunday.
Torsten Kjellstrand/The OregonianAarika, from left, Garrett and Kali Horner will be happy to see their father when he gets home.
It was time to get on the road, headed for home. There was nothing more I could do in Aspen, and I had three kids at home, missing their daddy. Before I go I would like to thank Johan again for his efforts. Don't be too hard on him -- he has a difficult job and was stuck in an impossible position. Everybody has to make hard decisions sometimes, and in that situation it's impossible to make everyone happy. This time I'm sure he's not the one at fault, and I appreciate all he has done for me in the two years that I have been with the team.
I love this team and am happy to finish out the season with it.
Now it is time to forget about the disappointment of missing the Tour and focus on what comes next on the schedule, whatever that may be. It's been a season of setbacks and comebacks, and this is just one more bump on the road, which hopefully foreshadows an even greater comeback.
Thanks for reading. Until the next race...