Apparently Armstrong and Contador are 'two stallions in the same barn', so to speak, causing Astana's teamwork to falter somewhat, though it seems as though the official declaration of intent from Astana is that Armstrong is prohibited from making any moves to jeopardize Contador's lead, which essentially forces Lance into a domestique's role (which IMO is total fucking bullshit).
Understandably, Lance can do much better than dealing with whiny little brats who want their turn in the sun, so word is that he's, a. going to race the tour next year as well, and b. he's taking the Astana team manager, Johan Buyneel, with him to create a new team that will probably rob Astana of other strong riders like Levi Leipheimer (who, like Bruyneel, is a good buddy of Lance's).
He's going to announce the sponsors of this new team tomorrow, velonews reports, and I can safely surmise that Livestrong and Trek will be among them.
Today's stage saw Armstrong diligently holding back a chase group from catching up to the lead group which consisted of Andreas Kloden, Alberto Contador, and the Schleck brothers. The Schleck brothers had hinted that they would make some moves in the Alps today, and boy did they ever. After repeated attacks by the Schlecks, Contador thought he might try the same, and attacked...
...but of course, the Schlecks weren't going to let him get away with that and quickly caught him.
But what Contador failed to realize is that in attacking the Schlecks, he forced his teammate off the back of the group, leaving himself with a 2-1 disadvantage on the descent to the finish. Oops!
The finish saw Andy Schleck give his older brother the stage victory to position themselves squarely on the podium behind Contador and ahead of Armstrong who is now in fourth place overall.
Well, tommorrows stage is an individual time trial where Lance may make up some time, though likely not enough to do any damage to the yellow jersey. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment