Official Lance Armstrong thread

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Jun 18, 2009
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Thoughtforfood said:
What a chump that guy is. "I would have won in 2008" and then running like a miniature poodle in the second video. What a complete tool. COMPLETE.

Except his team was excluded from the tour that year. Oops. And, if it wasn't, he'd still have been racing against AC. Oops again.
 
richwagmn said:

I was with him right up to the missed opportunity bit. Why attack 2 guys who are willing to drag you all the way down to the finish when the next day is a time trial. Attack at the top of the climb and you are riding against 2. Sit on, take it easy, and the next day you can take time on them when they are each alone. That is the only consideration, non of this "he should have waited for poor Klodie" poop that is muddying up the debate. Choice of flaying yourself for 15 K downhill against 2 chasers to gain a few seconds vs taking 1-2 minutes out of the both of them in a time trial the next day seems like a nobrainer to me.
 
Jul 21, 2009
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richwagmn said:

Nice article indeed. Much better than the one Bobke wrote a couple of days ago, telling us about how Lance was going to threaten Andy's 2nd place.

Funny how that kind of thinking also percolated to the pre-race interview with Andy on Versus. They asked Andy if he was worried about Armstrong. Andy's facial expression was priceless. After a long pause, he replied that he thought Lance should be worried about him, not the other way around.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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richwagmn said:

+1. Nice article. Sorry, don't agree with you Hugh on your "no brainer" issue. His attack lasted less then a minute and he sat up when it didn't work and let the Schlecks do all the work after that. He would not have lost any energy for the following day with that attack. But this has been argued extensively in another thread. So we can agree to disagree on that point. ;)
 
Jul 22, 2009
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Armstrong is toying with the idea of actually purchasing in interest in the Tour. Wouldn't that be something?
 
Jul 21, 2009
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scribe said:
Armstrong is toying with the idea of actually purchasing in interest in the Tour. Wouldn't that be something?

This would make total sense for him. Maybe he can use LAF money to buy the interest.

Since the fox in the henhouse angle with JB, LL and AK didn't work, maybe he can influence the race referees by buying a piece of the organization. A stage disqualification for gesturing to shoot cycling fans here, a tampered with urine sample there and next thing you know he could get his 8th MJ. It might sound a little fishy, but in the long run it helps cancer patients.
 
elapid said:
+1. Nice article. Sorry, don't agree with you Hugh on your "no brainer" issue. His attack lasted less then a minute and he sat up when it didn't work and let the Schlecks do all the work after that. He would not have lost any energy for the following day with that attack. But this has been argued extensively in another thread. So we can agree to disagree on that point. ;)

I am not saying he did lose any energy, I agree with everything you said to a point. I am assuming however that when he attacked he was actually trying to get a gap. If he had gone over the top with 15 seconds and then worked to hold it all the way in he would have used a lot of energy that he didn't have to. That's all I'm saying. Good move for Pais-Nice while preparing for TDF, not so good while trying to win the TDF.
 
Hugh Januss said:
I was with him right up to the missed opportunity bit. Why attack 2 guys who are willing to drag you all the way down to the finish when the next day is a time trial. Attack at the top of the climb and you are riding against 2. Sit on, take it easy, and the next day you can take time on them when they are each alone. That is the only consideration, non of this "he should have waited for poor Klodie" poop that is muddying up the debate. Choice of flaying yourself for 15 K downhill against 2 chasers to gain a few seconds vs taking 1-2 minutes out of the both of them in a time trial the next day seems like a nobrainer to me.

My observation was that the Schlecks had attacked so much, AC probably wanted to put in an attack to see what they had. Kloden, who in no way is in the top 3 of this race, had merely had to hold the wheels of the Schleck's and AC. AC broke off his attack as soon as he saw what was happening but the damage had been done. The guy who AC haters say should have been on the podium cracked like an egg when his teammate rode 30 metres ahead and could never recover. So exactly how was astana going to displace Andy and move AK ahead of Wigg and Frank???

It just seems to me that there is a lot of hate for AC and I just don't get it. AC thought, I imagine, that if they dropped the Schleck's, either Astana rider could get the stage win and be in a position for a podium. How else would it have happened? On the ventoux?

I wanted to see an Astana 1-2-3 as well, from what I saw, they were lucky to get 2 on the podium.
 
ggusta said:
My observation was that the Schlecks had attacked so much, AC probably wanted to put in an attack to see what they had. Kloden, who in no way is in the top 3 of this race, had merely had to hold the wheels of the Schleck's and AC. AC broke off his attack as soon as he saw what was happening but the damage had been done. The guy who AC haters say should have been on the podium cracked like an egg when his teammate rode 30 metres ahead and could never recover. So exactly how was astana going to displace Andy and move AK ahead of Wigg and Frank???

It just seems to me that there is a lot of hate for AC and I just don't get it. AC thought, I imagine, that if they dropped the Schleck's, either Astana rider could get the stage win and be in a position for a podium. How else would it have happened? On the ventoux?

I wanted to see an Astana 1-2-3 as well, from what I saw, they were lucky to get 2 on the podium.

I don't hate AC I think he is the best stage racer in the world. If I were LA, starting a new team I would take a step back from wanting to win and hire the best guy. Lance could never do that, maybe thats why he has 7 more tour wins than I (ok there are a lot of other reasons that we don't need to go into here). On the other hand 7 TDF wins as a rider and 7 TDF wins as a team owner would be a pretty big legacy.
 
Publicus said:
Astana won that stage, not Armstrong.

I would tend to agree. Armstrong did his part of the job that helped his team win the TTT, but he cannot claim this as his anymore than all his teammates.

Otherwise, his overall performance was not stellar but still pretty impressive.
 
I have run it over in my mind in a variety of ways, there's just no way they could have had a 1-2-3 finish. Kloden just did not have what the Schleck's had.

The thing that must be eating the most at the AC haters is that on the Arcalis, AC showed who was strongest in the mountains. It's curious to me that AC stopped gaining time on Andy over the last km or so. Was AC out of gas, or, I think, was JB on the radio telling him not to get yellow and force them to defend it for 2 weeks.

If Lance ever could have gotten yellow, the drama would have been wild. And he would have had no qualms making them all go out each day in defense of the yellow jersey for as long as it took.

Bring on 2010.
 
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