From Google News:
LOS ANGELES (AFP) — American cyclist Lance Armstrong will come out of retirement and bid for an eighth Tour de France title, VeloNews reported on its website on Monday.
Armstrong, who will turn 37 on September 18, is poised to join the Astana team and compete in five road races, according to a report that cited “sources familiar with the developing situation.”
Gosh this sounds familiar. I know I’ve heard something like this before.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm sure wish I could recall…….
4 responses so far ↓
1 Phil // Sep 9, 2008 at 10:11 am
I’ll wait until I hear an official announcement before I buy into this. He has been out of real training for too long to come back at 36, even with it being Lance.
2 Phil // Sep 9, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Well, that did not take long. The official announcement is out. It is true that Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement. He has released an official announcement through the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Now, there has been no confirmation of the team he will ride with, but the most likely scenario is that he will ride for Astana, which is what has been reported in most of the rumors so far. Though there has been no official announcement of this, Lance said that is the team he plans to ride with, uniting him with his former team manager Johan Bruyneel, the team manager who was in charge of Lance’s teams during all 7 of his Tour de France wins.
The big question is why is Lance returning to professional cycling. Yeah, people may associate him with athletes like Brett Favre. The one main difference is Lance actually did leave the sport for several years before deciding to come back. Also, there is his reasoning. Apparently, Lance realized he had more success getting his message out about cancer when he was riding professionally, and that is his purpose for getting back into the sport now. The full plans for this initiative will be discussed in a press conference on September 24.
Of course, the one big thing many people will be wondering is if Lance will have a shot at the maillot jaune (yellow jersey – the jersey worn by the overall leader and eventually the overall winner of the Tour de France).
Well, lets look at what the world of cycling is like now. First off, he will be riding for what is arguably the strongest team in the sport. Even though Team Astana was banned from the Tour de France this year, there is a good chance they will be there next year. This means Lance will be riding along side 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, one of the strongest riders out there, as well as Levi Leipheimer, who took 3rd that same year. Also on the same team is Andreas Kloden, 2nd place in the Tour de France is 2004 and 2nd place in the Tour de France in 2006 after being promoted as the result of Floyd Landis’s disqualification.
This means the team Astana will likely be fielding will have almost half of the Tour de France squad consisting of former Tour de France podium finishers. The rest of the team will likely have grand tour experience, meaning they will know how to work in the race.
Still, this does not fully speak to Lance Armstrong’s ability to win. What it does speak to is the level of support Lance Armstrong will have in a team. Now, what about his chances of winning? In my opinion, even with being out of the game for 3 years, it is still pretty good. Even though he has not been training at a professional level for road racing for 3 years, he has been competing heavily in running marathons and mountain biking, so he does not have as far to come back as many would expect. Also, there are other things to look at . There are a number of athletes of advance age getting back into the game. US swimmer Dara Torres, a 41 year old swimmer in the Bejing Olympics, Constantina Tomescu-Dita, the 38 year old womans gold medalist in the Olympic marathon, Mario Cipollini spent the first part of the season coming out of retirement to ride with Team Rock Racing at age 41, Lance Armstrong’s good friend George Hincapie is 35 and is still a big name in cycling, and the 2 oldest people in the Tour de France this past year were both 38.
The biggest question left to answer is not if Lance Armstrong still has what it takes to ride like he use to, but is it if he will be able to ride with the new style of racing that is out there. Speed is not as important anymore, being replaced with strategy. Most likely, Lance Armstrong will be able to ride using both, and if his team is able to do the same, then he will stand a chance. He just needs to be on a team that can hammer the rest of the riders into the ground. If Team Astana can do this, then I believe Lance Armstrong will have a chance.
3 Ick // Sep 10, 2008 at 7:15 am
He has been riding in races up in Austin, I believe this is what sparked his interest in returning. Though I’m sure when he finished 2nd in his latest race in Austin, it was a strange feeling for him.. :bigeyes:
4 Phil // Sep 10, 2008 at 8:04 am
Actually, those have been mountain bike races that he has been riding in, not road races. If he was racing in road races, there would have been a lot more bitching by other cyclists he was competing against.
This is not something that was sudden, either. He had to have made this decision at least 1 1/2 months ago, and he was probably mulling over the decision even before then. The reason the decision had to be made at that time is because at the beginning of August is when he re-enrolled himself U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s out-of-competition testing pool. This is a requirement for him getting back into professional cycling. You must be enrolled in this program for at least 6 months before you can complete professionally.
As far as the mountain biking, that is not something recent, either. He started competing in mountain bike races pretty much right after he retired from road racing. It is something he has enjoyed doing for years. He has been seen on his road bike, though, but these have been in rallies such as RAGBRAI (week long ride across Iowa) as well as a weekly ride in Richardson, TX that he did to help celebrate the birthday of the Jim Hoyt, owner of the bike shop where Lance bought his first bike, owner of the team Lance first rode for, and now a good friend of his. Have I mentioned I am kicking myself for missing that ride? :-P
Running marathons became something a little more recent, a little more than a year after he retired from road racing. Once again, though, this is nothing new to Lance has he use to run competitively when he was a triathlete at a younger age.
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