So a certain Texan is going to return to PRO cycling. Bully for him. He wants to win another Tour de France, ostensibly for cancer research, but more likely because he’s watched a handful of riders who he routinely crushed win in his absence. I don’t have particularly strong feelings about Armstrong. Maybe he doped, maybe he didn’t. Yes, he was a great rider in the Tour de France. But I am much more impressed with Greg Lemond’s palmares–top five finishes in the Spring Classics, podium finishes at the Giro d’Italia (the same year he won the Tour!), and two world championships. But Armstrong came of age in an era of specialists (beginning with Indurain–though, in his defense, he took two Giro/Tour doubles), and he was the greatest among them.

The fuss now is for whom Armstrong will ride. Astana, led by his favored DS Johan Bruyneel, is a popular choice. But this is problematic. First, Astana was excluded from the Tour this year (because of past indiscretions) and is no lock to receive an invitation next season. Second, Astana is already loaded, with Alberto Contador (he of the recent “triple crown” of Tour, Vuelta, and Giro wins) and two other Grand Tour podium winners, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden. Kloden seems to have accepted his fate as a super domestique, but Levi is clearly not content winning North American stage races. He pushed hard in the Vuelta to take second place, and took back a fair chunk of time in the final time trial, to finish only 40 seconds back. Contador wasn’t pleased:

Contador also had some pointed remarks about teammate Levi Leipheimer, who finished 46 seconds back in second place.

“I will only say that it’s not normal that someone that is supposed to be working for you finishes less than one minute back in the GC,” Contador said. “If Navacerrada had been 20km more, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Two things worth noting here:

1. It seems like Levi may be racing elsewhere next season.
2. Contador is tacitly admitting he wasn’t the strongest on the team, simply the chosen leader.

What’s more, it appears that Contador would fly, too, if Astana took Armstrong:

“It would be quite complicated. I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for it,” he said in the interview published Tuesday. “And with Armstrong, there could be difficult situations in which the team would put him first and that would harm me.”

I’d like to see one of two things come of all this:

1. Bruyneel gets Armstrong, then tells the quartet that the team will deliver them, with the peleton appropriately shredded, to the base of every major climb. From there, they can sort out who’s the best.
2. Leipheimer goes to CSC (who is without a true GC threat without Sastre–and give Schleck the Younger a few more years). Armstrong goes to Astana. Contador goes to a team that will worship him.

No doubt that Contador doesn’t want Armstrong to rain his reign as the new stage race patron. I can’t imagine Levi sticking with Astana in any situation. Contador likely believes he can win all three Grand Tours next year, and that leaves Levi to win the Tour of California (or, maybe not, since Lance wants to race there) or the Tour of Missouri. He is obviously fit enough to challenge for a win, but he won’t get that chance at Astana, especially if Armstrong returns.

Any which way this all shakes out, it will make for interesting (and entertaining) reading for the next few months.

Posted on 23 September 2008