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Can Lance Win Without George and Other Stuff?
By spokesman | September 19, 2008
The Lance Armstrong comeback news has been official for about a week (see Vanity Fair article). Since then, Lance has asked José Luís “Chechu” Rubiera to delay his retirement for one more season, so that he can ride with Lance next season. Chechu is a strong climber on the Astana team, where he is helping Alberto Contador to victory in Vuelta. He rode and supported Lance on several of his Tour De France victories.
However, the one rider that has supported Lance more than any other rider is George Hincapie. He is the only rider to have been on Lance’s team for all seven Tour De France victories. George rode all of those races, finished each one and made many significant contributions. George is a classics specialist and used his experience from those races to lead Lance across the cobblestone roads in the 2004 Tour, where other favorites crashed out of the race. George was instrumental in the team trials including the stage victory in 2004. Riding the final individual time trial of 2003, George rode as hard as he could to identify the dangerous portions of the rainy course and report back before Lance’s ride. Jan Ullrich didn’t have that kind of support, despite the fact that he needed to gain time on Lance. In fact, three of Ullrich’s teammates crash during the time trial in the same area where Ullrich would crash later on, but none of his teammates let Ullrich know about the course conditions before his ride. Ullrich fell during his time trial and did not gain on Lance. George is still racing but not with the Astana team. In the next few months, we will see if Lance reaches out to George. While there is no shortage of talent on Astana, the current teammates may not be as focused on supporting Lance as the old US Postal and Discovery teams.
Switching topics, there is a Lance Armstrong endorsement that I believe sends the wrong message. Part of his come back seems to be motivated by his desire to prove that he can race dope free. While Lance never failed a doping test; there have been critics that point to circumstantial evidence and hearsay. (see the book From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France
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Topics: Professional Racing |
September 20th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I agree that Lance needs to be smarter about his image. That FRS stuff may just be a sports drink like gatoraid but it is marketed as something more.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Your article nails it. The Astana team has a few Tour de France contenders, and supporting Lance is not their #1 priority. However, I read somewhere that Lance isn’t out to win it, and maybe even play domestique to the other guys, which I would find difficult to believe! But, he needs big George, or someone just as loyal as George to ride by his side.
I don’t think the supplement thing is out of the ordinary for any athlete. We all know they take it, and im sure these companies all sponsor the athletic events. Hey, the guy needs to earn a living! haha