People are always slating the anti Lance brigade and why people are happy to see him be beaten, that is easy. I dont like Lance, I have been over THE WHY so many times I am not going through it again, if you only joined in the last month, too bad. I have followed his career from fan to neutral to disliking Lance. I agree there are some on here like WBT who really hate Lance and even I get a bit tired of them sometimes. Anyway, here we go.
Lance is to be admired for his performances but take out the TTT and base his performances on prologue, Andorra and today, the important days, he would barely be top 10, still a great performance for his age etc but consider the way people have pushed him as a potential winner, its a far way of that, there is still time to be lost(more likely) or gained. Fair play if he retains a podium position.
On the Astana issue and his post race comments today, my feeling are this. Lance returned to a team that had the best stage racer in the world and still pushed himself as team leader at the Tour despite being almost 38 and missing 3 years. He has tried to undermine Contador whenever he can by his actions and comments, Paris-Nice, stg 3 & stg 7 and his team have backed him.
Now it is clear that Contador is better, he is suddenly backing him, how is that admirable, he knows if he tried to take on Contador, he would get his **** kicked more so he is cutting his losses and playing the faithful team-mate role which he very much wasnt up until today, if Lance is such a good team-mate, why were he and Kloeden leading the chasing favourites today and dont try to tell me they were slowing them down, if that was the case why did Lance crack. Lance now accepts Contador is best so Astana can ride defensively as a united team which will benefit Lance to keep his podium position, just dont let any other contenders escape.
Since he announced his comeback, all we have had to listen to is Lance, Lance, Lance, in cycling magazines, on TV everywhere. If you are a fan of the guy great but for your average year round cycling fan, there is such a thing as overkill, and this was overkill in mammoth proportions. Of course he is the biggest name in cycling so I understand why everybody wants to make their penny of his back but that doesnt mean I have to like it. and that is why I was not happy when he returned as I knew it would be like this, we had 7 years of this stuff and then he comes back.
People go on how he raises the profile of cycling, again I agree he does but I dont care. I live in a country, Ireland that saw a huge surge in interest in cycling during the Kelly/Roche era, it was one of the top sports, now it is nothing but I have always been a cycling fan. If fans are attracted to cycling because of Lance, they are mostly fairweather fans and will dissappear again. Cycling will continue though, maybe the US will be affected but really who cares, its just like Ireland or Germany or whatever countries that have had interest spikes. People in Belgium, Italy, France are always the core countries for cycling and whether Lance is competing or not will not change things in these countries.
I respect his work for cancer but I have always believed his comeback was about other things, his comments about last years Tour, Sastre, Vandevelde etc confirmed that. The Cancer issue was tagged on to provide the safety net when needed which it has. Not critcising his cancer work.
This has always been a win-win situation for Lance, if he wins, he is the greatest, if he loses, its all about the cancer, old-age, the time away from the sport, the great team-mate. ad infitum.
So there you go and I bet quite a few average non-Lance fans will back me on this. Just because you dont idolise Lance dont make you a hater.
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