A staff writer on the Team RadioShack site
wrote a piece, wrapping up winter and projecting to Spring and Summer.
"Lance has stated already that he is more involved in this team than any other before and it will be fascinating to see if his leadership and experience can raise Team Radioshack to a new level of dominance and perhaps another yellow jersey."
The whole piece is written very much from the perspective of Lance passing on the torch to the others. And, privately, I take that "the new level of dominance" is trumping the "back-to-back" dominance that was winning two overall team rankings in February stage races, and not trumping the dominance of, say, the sort of Tour dominance of Lance's earlier teams, like Discovery.
I actually don't mind this putting a positive spin on things on own sites too much, all teams do it to some extent.
But reading this article that just appeared, I am wondering if Lance has smelled the coffee, and now the Team spinners are clearing the stage for a new narrative, away from win #8 expectations, in which this year will be presented, in retrospect, but as if it has been the purpose all along, as "all about" the master passing on the craft to the young disciples.
Reading literally, they could even be lowering the standard to measure domination and success by, to their own crowd, bit by bit. I find the angle, and word choice, of the whole piece quite interesting.
In the context of the whole article, those last few words could be read two ways. As an overall win. But it doesn't cast it in iron. It could also be read as a goal revision: total success is getting a yellow jersey somewhere en-route, by anyone in the team, rather than over Lance's shoulders, in Paris. Anyone's Jellow Jersey would be a victory by, and based on, the master skills of Lance.
If Lance gets a Maillot Jaune it would be quite a feat. Not one I would welcome, as I'd like cycling to move on in a time when the stage is already filled with exciting new names that will be the future of the sport, and Lance is a huge distraction, rather than an asset, in selling the product that post-Lance-era-cycling already is. But a feat nevertheless.
But, to me, the way Lance has been rolled out this season as the figurehead of ship "Lance's Armstrong Team Radioshack", and the places he is showing up in, and not up in, is all starting to add up to a general lowering of expectations.
I am not too interested how a picking of "the worst pictures" looks just now, I fully expect Lance to be in reasonable shape come July, and for an old dude, in staggering shape. If he didn't have his own past, his actual results will probably be pretty decent. Even compared to some of the young guns around him. But compared to the top, I don't expect him to make many ripples on the road though.
I always expected the 2010 narration to flip, out of grace necessity, towards "one for the team".
But I didn't expect that to happen any earlier than mountain stage #3. #2 at a push.
Maybe I am reading too much into it, as my expectations are so low. But I do find the signals we are getting from above so early on quite peculiar.
To see an official piece written about how "the success of Team Radioshack may very well depend on Lance’s ability to transfer these intangible characteristics to a team"... about how Lance will be passing on his skills to enable the Team step up to success and greatness, rather Lance.... peculiar.
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