Whatever you think about him, he is the biggest story in sport this summer. OSM talks to Armstrong’s friends, enemies and rivals about his controversial comeback
Virtually everyone I run into is asking me, “Can he do it again?” People want to know whether Lance Armstrong, after an almost four-year absence, can win the world’s greatest bike race an eighth time. I tell them that everything is stacked against him.
At 37 years and 10 months, he is 18 months older than the oldest previous winner, the 1922 champion, Firmin Lambot of Belgium. And Armstrong has not won a single race this year in his return to cycling that began at January’s Tour Down Under. Yet I am confident that he will be a leading contender at the 2009 Tour starting in Monaco on 4 July. I even think he could win…Â Details
Lance Armstrong will be on Astana Cycling’s final nine-rider roster for the Tour de France next month.
Armstrong, a seven-time Tour winner, will be joined on the team by three-time Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador, Andreas Kloden, Levi Leipheimer, Yaroslav Popovych and Haimar Zubeldia.
Three other riders from a list of seven will also earn spots on the roster for the Tour, which begins July 4 in Monaco. That group includes …Â Details
Lance Armstrong’s Astana team appears ready to participate in the Tour de France after reaching an agreement with its Kazakh backers to solve financial problems that have plagued the team this year.
Astana riders have held repeated protests since April over debts owed by the Kazakh Cycling Federation, putting the team’s participation in the Tour in doubt.
Astana issued a statement on Thursday saying team leader Johan Bruyneel, its managing company Olympus Sarl and the cycling federation had settled their differences during a meeting with a Kazakh government representative and that the debts had been paid…Â Details
Tour de France organizers banned former world champion Tom Boonen from next month’s race after the Belgian rider tested positive for cocaine for the second time in less than year.
The 28-year-old Boonen’s latest positive test came in April. The Quick Step team rider previously tested positive for the drug in May 2008 and was banned by Tour organizers from last year’s event.
“Following Tom Boonen’s recent test, after a first test in 2008, the Tour de France, after meeting Quick Step team representatives, can only state that the image and behavior of Tom Boonen do not match the Tour de France’s image or the one that should be promoted by such an exceptional champion,†the Amaury Sport Organization said in a statement… Details