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2009 Tour de France [spoilers]

Harry Longshanks

Harry Longshanks

ILikeBigPutts&ICannotLie
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Stage 1 (15km time trial in Monaco) starts on the 4th of July.

For those who don't normally following cycling [Harry raises hand], Lance Armstrong is riding for Team Astana, which is a Kazakhstan team managed by former Team U.S. Postal/Team Discover Channel manager Johan Bruyneel.

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Armstrong will start his time trial this morning at 10:17 EST. Hopefully he will come out and throw down a quick time, it sounded to me like they haven't decided who the team leader will be.
 
Is Armstrong going to be in a position to contend? I don't follow cycling well enough to know, but the word was that it was impossible to recover his tour level conditioning after his crash and busted collarbone a month ago. Has he done the impossible and put himself in condition regardless?
 
worst_shot_ever said:
Is Armstrong going to be in a position to contend? I don't follow cycling well enough to know, but the word was that it was impossible to recover his tour level conditioning after his crash and busted collarbone a month ago. Has he done the impossible and put himself in condition regardless?
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He thinks he can contend, he said it would depend on how the TT went today as that would determine the pecking order on the team.

Right now he is killing the course, it's early though, I think he was the 17th rider out of the gate.
 
Armstrong finished 10 seconds behind the best time and currently sits in 3rd, but there are a lot of riders left to start.

MO, the decision of who will be Astana's team leader has me intrigued too. After all, Alberto Contador was a pre-race favorite to win it all, but Armstrong is a proven winner. I wonder it is doing to team unity?
 
Yeah it will be interesting to see who gets tagged as the leader, Armstrong had said IIRC all along that he would be riding as a support member. Now it's all changed kind of like Lemond and Hinault.

Spoiler
BTW as far as I'm concerned Lemond is jealous of Armstrong and all the success he has had. Lemond needs to STFU and go away.
 
MO_Hacker said:
Yeah it will be interesting to see who gets tagged as the leader, Armstrong had said IIRC all along that he would be riding as a support member. Now it's all changed kind of like Lemond and Hinault.

Spoiler
BTW as far as I'm concerned Lemond is jealous of Armstrong and all the success he has had. Lemond needs to STFU and go away.
Click to expand...

Completely agree about Lemond. He was "the Man" in American cycling until Armstrong came along and he can't get over the fact that he's not the star anymore. So he gets in the media the only way he can - by making accusations against Armstrong.
 
I'm not familiar with Contador but he could concievably be the third best on his team this year. I didn't watch any cycling for the last two years so a lot of these guys are new to me.
 
MO_Hacker said:
I'm not familiar with Contador but he could concievably be the third best on his team this year. I didn't watch any cycling for the last two years so a lot of these guys are new to me.
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Me neither. The info on Contador is what I'm reading in an attempt to catch up for this year's race.
 
After Astana wins team time trials today, Armstrong is tied for the lead but does not get the yellow jersey (fractions of a second behind Cancellara.)

Claire, maybe you should take up cycling so you can wear Team Garmin-Slipstream's jersey:
Spoiler
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Team Astana won stage 4 *team time trial*, Armstrong is now in a virtual deadlock for 1st overall. He is just fractions of a second out of 1st, after todays stage both Fabian Cancellara and Armstrong are shown with a time of 10:38:07.


Edit:Damn Harry, you are fast. I just finished watching the coverage from today. I think we may be the only two interested in this event for now. As it gets closer with Armstrong contending for the win though more will jump on board.
 
What time are they showing the races live?
 
TheGasman said:
What time are they showing the races live?
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It was 7:30 - 11:00 today CST



What the hell is Ben Stiller doing presenting the yellow jersey????? That caught me totally off guard.

Edit: Tomorrow will be 7:30-10:30 CST
 
I'm really looking forward to the coverage on the 17th and 18th as I was in that area last fall, it will be cool to see if I recognize any of the landmarks as they enter and leave Colmar.
 
I watched on Versus HD yesterday afternoon, and I have to say, that is one crazy race! The peleton is like a living, breathing collective entity. Loved watching the arial footage of it wending around corners and so forth. I really enjoyed the stage I watched. Lance ended up about 39 secs shy of 1st. Some interesting comments from him about leadership of his team, too. It was great TV.
 
Im watching it on Tivo right now. I must say the Heart rate monitor feature is awesome.
 
I can't wait for them to get to the mountains and see if Lance can drop the hammer on everybody like the old days.
 
Watching the Tour this morning and they just that Lance will be starting his own team next year, Radio Shack, with Johan Bruyneel.

I'm guessing that, after his extending his lead out in a manner that pushed his Astana teammates off the podium with him, Alberto Contador will not be invited to join the team...

EDIT: They already have a website place holder:
Team RadioShack :: Get Ready
 
Really good stage today. These guys are beasts.
 
Love watching the Tour. I think you're right about Contador. It will be an incredible team, though.
 
Harry Longshanks said:
Really good stage today. These guys are beasts.
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I cannot begin to imagine how hard it must be to ride up a mountain like that. I don't think I could make it in a month and these guys do it pretty much every day for three weeks. Mindboggling
 
I forgot about this thread
Harry Longshanks said:
Watching the Tour this morning and they just that Lance will be starting his own team next year, Radio Shack, with Johan Bruyneel.

I'm guessing that, after his extending his lead out in a manner that pushed his Astana teammates off the podium with him, Alberto Contador will not be invited to join the team...

EDIT: They already have a website place holder:
Team RadioShack :: Get Ready
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see what happens with Contador, no way will he be invited to join Radio Shack. I think he probably will have a bad reputation with everybody in the peloton for the way he won the Tour. Leipheimer made it very clear that Contador attacked on his own against team orders to take the yellow jersey and then way he dropped his teammate on the climb in another stage wasn't right. Professional cycling is still a team sport even if it is all about individual glory to the winner of the stage or overall race.
 
MO_Hacker said:
I forgot about this thread


It will be interesting to see what happens with Contador, no way will he be invited to join Radio Shack. I think he probably will have a bad reputation with everybody in the peloton for the way he won the Tour. Leipheimer made it very clear that Contador attacked on his own against team orders to take the yellow jersey and then way he dropped his teammate on the climb in another stage wasn't right. Professional cycling is still a team sport even if it is all about individual glory to the winner of the stage or overall race.
Click to expand...

I will admit that what I know about professional cycling can be written on the back of a postage stamp, but isn't it up to the teammate to keep up, at least partially as well? :confused2:
 
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