Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong will lead Team Astana at the Tour de France, starting July 4 in Monaco. The team announced its Tour line-up Thursday with a video release on its website, introducing “The New French Revolution”, as “9 Riders join forces to take over France.”
Contador, who won the Tour in 2007, and Armstrong, who won in 1999-2005, will be primarily supported by Andreas Klöden, who finished second in the Tour in 2004 and 2006, and Levi Leipheimer, who was third in the Tour in 2007.
Team manager Johan Bruyneel said that Contador “has worked very hard, earning the right to represent our team as the leader this July.” He added that Armstrong “is extremely motivated for the Tour de France.”
The squad also includes Yaroslav Popovych, Haimar Zubeldia, Sergio Paulinho, and Gregory Rast. Kazakh rider Dimitriy Muravyey completes the line up and will be making his Tour debut.
You might remember Klöden as the guy who had it in the bag here (Stage 17, 2004 TdF), only to be blindsided by you know who....
Lance was trying to support Landis and give him the stage win since he already had 3 stage wins up to that point, but Landis didn't have the legs. Lance did NOT want to give the stage win to the Germans, so he took it himself. What an incredible finish!
Slider... <sniff, sniff>... you stink.
jpetekUA777/forum/images/avatars/gallery/first/default.pngoffline(Founding Member) 26 Jun 09, 08:14
Yeah, more or less. But he's also American, and TEXAN!
And on top of that, he's a really good cyclist.
Slider... <sniff, sniff>... you stink.
Tom in NO/forum/images/avatars/gallery/first/default.pngoffline26 Jun 09, 16:45
Queso wrote: TEXAN!
The list of people we don't hold that against: Lance, yourself, and Nolan Ryan ... ...and our other Texas NAS friends ... ...any others, it's pretty much open season
Though it will be interesting to see how the team does this year.
"Tramps like us"-Bruce Springsteen
jpetekUA777/forum/images/avatars/gallery/first/default.pngoffline(Founding Member) 26 Jun 09, 21:22
In all seriousness, what do you think are some realistic hopes for Lance? It's been a long time, but you can't count him out of anything.
jpetekUA777 wrote:In all seriousness, what do you think are some realistic hopes for Lance? It's been a long time, but you can't count him out of anything.
I'd say his odds of winning are better than average, but maybe not as good as some other years like 2004. I trust his judgment about being ready to race though, Lance would not click-into the pedals for the prologue if he had any doubt about his ability to win. 2003 was a close one though.
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