Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

So, you've probably heard the news that Lance is coming out of retirement to race in 2009. While his program is still up in the air, he's been very clear about wanting to race in year's edition of the Tour de France. This blog is a collection of a few of my thoughts about this turn of events.

On the comeback itself, I think Lance can still be pretty competitive as a stage racer as long as he keeps his number of racing days to a minimum. From all reports, it sounds like that's the intention with him lining up to do most of his training races here in the States at high caliber events such as the Tour of California and the Tour of Georgia (if it happens) or in France with Paris-Nice and the Duaphine. There are a few reports that he might race the Giro but I really don't see that happening for this year. (Though one more year where he goes for the Giro/Vuelta double would be awesome...especially if he were to race the World Championships and find a way to win at the end of 2009.)

On the motivation side of things, it's clear that Lance has got a lot of things that are contributing to this decision. He's been very clear about this being about cancer awareness on an international scale but like all things Lance, this is a lot more complex. The first thing is that Lance is a huge competitor. When he was a part owner of the Discovery team he could get his fix by riding in the team car but once that ended the path basically had to lead back to the bike. I think also there's a desire to fix what is an increasingly tarnished legacy. Lance always claimed to have never doped but that's getting harder to believe. By coming back and living under the new regimens of transparency for blood work, he's got to be hoping to show that he can win clean. Finally, I think he'd really like to tell David Walsh to shut up and this is probably the best way to do it and to help rescue the reputation of American cycling in international eyes.

Where's he going to ride. Odds on favorite would normally to reunite with his old director who's now with the Astana team. The problem with this is that Astana already has a Tour champion who I don't think will take kindly to riding for another champion. I don't see Johann mortgaging the future of his team so that Lance can ride one or two more years to have a shot at an eighth Tour victory when he could get three of four more with Alberto Contador. Still, the ties that bind make tyhis a 20% possibility in my eyes. Lance has said that this will be an international initiative so I think he'd like to be on a team with that sort of scope. If he wants to remain with an American owned team, that suggests Team Columbia where his good friend George Hincapie is riding. Hincapie has been coy about this whole story so I think this is the best option, especially after Columbia' phenomenal Tour outing in '08. I give this the highest possibility of about 25%. I don't really see Lance signing with Garmin-Chipotle as his relationship with Vaughters is rumored to be tense and Vaughters has said some pretty uncomplimentary things about Postal/Discovery in the past. One interesting but very unlikely option would be for Lance to race for Michael Ball's Rock Racing team. This would definitely make for great marketing and have huge international appeal but there's very little chance Rock Racing with it's questionable riders would get a Tour invite. Oversees options include Lance riding for CSC who will be looking for a Tour contender and who has a team director, Bjarne Riis, that Lance admires. I think this has the highest probability for a Euro team and I place it at 20%. One final option is for Lance to put together his own team with his own money. There are a bunch of riders who need jobs with the Gerolsteiner and Sanuer Duval-Scott teams folding and Lance could probably make something happen out of that. I give that a 15% chance of being the solution. Some of the comments coming from the Armstrong camp sound like their doing all planning themselves and I could see them wanting the team to be about the "LiveStrong" brand. The biggest problem would be for such a team to get an invite to the Tour and, maybe, for them to get the staff to run a racing operation.

Which solution do I like? To be honest, I've always wanted to see Lance race for Bjarne Riis and I think the team has the same kind of work ethic and single pointed focus and training style that Lance is known for. For a lot of reasons I see Columbia as the most likely option in a traditional sense. I'm most intrigued, however, about the idea of Lance forming his own team that serves to promote the cause of cancer awareness and agitate for more funding on a global scale. To me, this would be the most compelling reason to come back even if the logistical issues are the most insurmountable.

We'll know more by September 24th.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |