4 Jul 2010 – Lance Armstrong’s final Tour de France will begin in Rotterdam tomorrow and the favourite for the race is taking the American’s bid for an eighth title seriously.Armstrong, who will be 39 in September, announced via the social networking website Twitter earlier this week that the 97th Tour de France will be his last.
The favourite for the race the American dominated from 1999 to 2005 and returned to in 2009 is Alberto Contador. The Spaniard believes Armstrong is capable of winning an eighth Tour and derailing his own bid for a third yellow jersey in four years. Asked whether Armstrong can win, Contador said: “Absolutely and on his own merit. Last year he got third place and this year he is riding at a very good level before the Tour. He will be fighting for victory.”
Contador and Armstrong were team-mates 12 months ago. They endured a fractious relationship and the Texan took the majority of the Spaniard’s Astana colleagues with him when he established Team RadioShack, who, like BMC Racing and Team Sky, will be making their Tour debut this month. Asked the extent of his relationship with Armstrong, Contador added: “The truth is that we have no relationship at all, but I respect him as a great rider and champion.”
The 27-year-old added: “Victory is the aim for which I’m training. I know that is very difficult, because everyone is waiting to see if you fail and they will look to exploit any sign of weakness, but to me victory is a great goal and a challenge.”It is a year in which everyone appoints you as the clear favourite and this is a handicap. The surprise factor is minimal and any time you fail, people will be there to exploit it.”Contador will be expected to perform well in tomorrow’s 8.9km prologue in Rotterdam, but he could endure a trying time from Sunday’s first road stage until the race hits the mountains.The relative weakness of his Astana team – particularly in comparison to Team RadioShack, who have three former Tour podium finishers in their ranks – must also be a concern to the champions. However, Contador is confident of his form, even though he withdrew from the defence of his Spanish time-trial title last week with flu.He said: “I’ve been training from the beginning of the year thinking about the Tour.
I hope you can see in the Tour that we have succeeded.
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Update: Lance stated last night that he is done with winning the tour. He plans to take it easy. See Bicycling.com for more info. Question is, who does he support? Kloden or Leipheimer? Two cycling greats who have both been on the podium in Paris. Leipheimer is 8th, Kloden 21st. The good is the bad for Team RadioShack; they have some GREAT riders with a history but they also have riders with a long history who may have passed their prime. All in all, this is a great year with many American teams and many American riders. Just too bad it has also been a year of many crashes.