As expected, Alberto Contador (Astana) has won the first of the Alpine stages that ended in Verbier, Switzerland. He has also taken the maillot jaune. Lance Armstrong came in second. Contador showed his strength in the mountains and the next stages (rest day tomorrow) will test his experience and condition. Armstrong was very impressive indeed. A lot of people underestimated him because he retired four years ago and is much older than many riders.
Now things are getting interesting . . .
Levi Leipheimer (Astana) has decided to drop out of the Tour de France 2009 after a nasty crash in yesterday’s stage which ended in Vittel. Michael Rogers and Leipheimer crashed together at a turn which Rogers landing on top of Leipheimer and emerging unscathed. Leipheimer thought that his wrist injury was not serious and continued riding. He realized it was far worse only later in the night when the injury proved too painful and doctors advised him to have an operation.
The absence of Leipheimer is a big blow to Astana and to riders such as Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador, the two leaders of the Astana team. But it gets more interesting for the other riders . . .
Lance Armstrong will be riding for Astana in the coming year. Astana is a Kazakhstan team that has riders like Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer. I wonder how Contador will deal with this because until Armstrong’s announcement, Contador was the No. 1 rider. Contador says in an interview:
Sharing a team with Armstrong would be “seriously difficult,” says Contador. “I believe that I have won the right to ride as a team leader, without having to win the post,” he asserted. With Armstrong it could produce a difficult situation, because Armstrong would want the team to ride for him, at my expense, he explained. All the same, Contador said, “it is my intention to ride out my contract until 2010″ with Astana, though he admitted that he had received good offers from other teams. Can Armstrong win the Tour? “It would be very difficult, but not impossible,” believes the 2007 Tour winner.
Read more here:
http://www.podiumcafe.com/2008/9/23/620217/contador-on-the-armstrong
Who would have believed? Lance Armstrong announced he’s coming out of retirement. He will be attempting to win his 8th Tour de France next year. It’s not known yet which team he’ll be riding for but rumors are circulating that it will be Astana.
Alberto Contador says he will be riding for Astana in 2008 and 2009. Contador is part of the Discovery team that is disbanding at the end of this season because Disco is no longer sponsoring cycling.
