I had thought about posting rides 128-131, but since I don’t have access to my photos, I’m just gonna ramble about the Tour de France for a few minutes.
I can honestly say that this week is the very first time that I’ve missed the cable package that I dropped 4 months ago. Luckily for me, NBC universal sports (a broadcast channel) carried the Giro, and I was able to catch the Paris-Roubaix live online via a pirated Dutch television feed. But right now, being cable-less, I’m relegated to the online tickers and animated widgets that the different cycling sites (including the official TdF site) offer to help me follow the tour. This is compounded by the fact that our home desktop just crapped out on us last night….so all my TdF updates have to be enjoyed at work. That being said, I’m doing my best to follow the tour, especially on account of the potential for an Astana mini-drama.
I followed today’s tour on the BBC comment feed. Like with other commentaries in the past few days and weeks, they seem to be hinting that Lance Armstrong is looking to jump into the leadership role if Contador flounders in the coming stages. Its clearly a popular angle to play up, simply because it’s the controversial, gossipy thing to talk about. I think I personally rank the probability of this happening a lot higher than most people, and not because of its newsworthiness, but simply because I tend to think Armstrong is way more egotistical than he would let on. This isn’t to say that I doubt Lance’s sincerity in returning to cycling to raise awareness for cancer. Then again, wouldn’t winning an 8th tour after 3 years of lounging around on the beach with Matthew Mcaughnahey and banging Olsens (ok, so he did run a marathon and do some mtb racing) raise the most awareness possible? It’s not just cancer research that could use a boost from Lance’s success. You figure the sport of cycling took a massive hit the moment he retired. Lance provided a huge boost to the visibility of the sport, especially here in the states. Not having passed the torch to anyone as a “viable” replacement in terms of star power (Landis, Contador and Sastre are all pretty vanilla when you think about it), I think even having this discussion, and having Lance back on Sportscenter – is great for everyone.
Getting back to Lance’s ego. I just don’t buy the fact that he’ll ride shotgun to Contador if he thinks he’s the stronger rider. Lance is too accustomed at getting inside other rider’s heads to be 100% honest in saying that he’s riding in purely a support role for Contador. I’m inclined to believe that this is all one big mind game for him. We’ve seen it before with the way Lance dominated Ulrich, but pretended that it was always way closer than it really was.
Most of the signs immediately prior to the tour pointed to Contador as the undisputed leader. They dropped Horner who was an unabashed Lance supporter and they made sure to fund Contador’s contract as opposed to resigning with a Lance-favoring, possibly U.S. based company – and risk losing Contador. That being said, what if Contador is simply an expensive distraction to downplay Lance’s chances of winning an 8th?
My prediction: if Lance continues to crank out strong races, and if Contador falters one or twice more (just look at all the chatter about him being responsible for the peleton split), then we’ll start to see Lance emerge as the de facto leader and Contador will mysteriously come down with an illness. He might continue to ride, but I bet we hear that he’s riding through an injury or that he’s somehow not himself. There will be some kind of face-saving going on… When you think about it, I’m not really going out on a limb here….this is just a few stages away from becoming the reality of the 2009 tour.