Yesterday Lance Armstrong made a serious statement at the opening time trial of the Tour de France. Unexpectedly, Armstrong finished 5 seconds faster than his rival, Alberto Contador.
It appears that Armstrong may be better prepared than I previously thought. Although we won't really know until the mountains, I might have to revise my
predictions from last week. At this point I still don't think he has the legs to win the Tour, but I do think the race could be a lot tighter than I originally thought. I will be real curious to see how Lance performs in the first real mountain stages (7 and 8).
Don't forget Tuesday. Stage 3 will be quite interesting as well. The race passes over a few stretches of cobblestones near the finish that could really shake things up. Contador has little experience riding over cobbles.
Speaking of Lance, did you see the
feature length story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday? Quite interesting.
Former teammate Floyd Landis laid-out some detailed doping allegations against Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Postal / Discovery teams. Although very compelling, you have to take it with massive grains of salt. Landis is a known liar and bit of a loose cannon. Of course Armstrong has strongly
denied all allegations.
There's been an awful lot of smoke surrounding Lance and illegal doping over the years. I completely agree that there are a lot of reasons to believe that he isn't doping, such as his freakish physiology, his attention to detail, his revolutionary preparedness and training, and the fact that he lost a lot of upper body weight due to his cancer, while maintaining the muscle mass in his legs.
However, I'd like to point out some historical facts:
* The three winners of the Tour de France in the three years just prior to the the Armstrong era have all admitted to doping:
1996: Bjarne Riis
1997: Jan Ullrich
1998: Marco Pantani
* During the Armstrong era of 1999 through 2005, there were a total of eight different riders that finished second or third to Lance in those years. Five of those riders have since been busted for doping: Alex Zulle, Jan Ullrich, Raimondas Rumsas, Alexander Vinokourov and Ivan Basso.
* In 2006, the first year after the Armstrong era, Tour winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his victory for illegal doping.
* At least six teammates -top lieutenants - of Lance Armstrong have been busted, or admitted to doping over the years, including; Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, Roberto Herras, Floyd Landis, Frankie Andreu and Manuel Beltran.
I really don't know what the truth is. What are your thoughts? Do you think Lance has been, or has ever cheated?
Jeff
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