Armstrong to skip Tour de France

CYCLING

Armstrong to skip Tour de France?

Fri, 07 Jan 2005

Record six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has hinted again that he may not bid for a seventh yellow jersey on the race this July, as he wants to beef up his honours list with one-day classics wins.

Armstrong, 33, will continue his hugely-successful career with his new Discovery team, the nucleus of which comes from the US Postal outfit, when the season begins.

However, since eclipsing the likes of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain — all of whom won the Tour five times — Armstrong's desire to bid for a record seventh victory seems to be on the wane.

In a recent interview with Dutch television station NOS-TV, broadcast this week but recorded in November 2004, the American said he may now turn his attention to the tough one-day classics such as the Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege or even Paris-Roubaix.

"I don't want to go back," he said when asked if he was to return to the streets of France in July 2005.

"I don't know which realisation is greater — do I not want to go back, or do I want to do other things? And there are other things that I want to do in cycling."

Armstrong, crowned the world road race champion in 1993 in Oslo, had already abandoned the Tour de France three times before contracting cancer late in 1996, and could now return to one-day racing.

"I feel an urgent need to do those races," he said.

And he admitted that because of an ongoing spat with veteran rider Filippo Simeoni, which originated from their respective links with notorious Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, he would be unable to ride the Tour of Italy.

"I cannot do the Giro (Tour of Italy) because they are trying to prosecute me for sports fraud, so I'm not going to present myself in that country and give them the photo opportunity that they're dying for," added Armstrong.

As for the Tour of Spain, Armstrong said: "The problem is: I do think the Giro is bigger than the Vuelta. The big days, in terms of the people, the emotion, the intensity on the roadside, are the Angliru and the Mortirolo (climbs) — and the Giro is bigger."

AFP

skip the Tour? more than 2000 miles? he will need strong ankles

He's afraid the Tour's drug testing has caught up to him.

i doubt that because the "tour testing" is the same testing he gets year round until he retires. So get a life and realize he is not on drugs.

A reasonable argument can be made that Lance was blood doping like his buddy Tyler. The test for this didn't become available until after this most recent tour which is why it first tripped up riders at the Olympics. Notably Ullrich and Lance skipped out on the Olympics. Tyler may have felt he had to risk it...he'd botched the Tour and was on the hook for his big contract.

Now that the test is available, well, Lance won't be doping any more, if he ever was. (I'm not saying he was, I'm just saying it is possible that he was.) He's still an amazingly talented cyclist who even long before his cancer was capable of winning one-day events. He may feel that he can still enjoy the sport and go for classic wins and forget the rigors of yet more Tours.

THAT'S your "reasonable argument" ?? Tyler did it, so Lance was doing it too ?? Holy sh!t, you should be an attorney !!!

Blood doping tests have been around longer than the last 6 months. But, thanks for playing.

[quote]Frank Booth wrote:

A reasonable argument can be made that Lance was blood doping like his buddy Tyler. The test for this didn't become available until after this most recent tour which is why it first tripped up riders at the Olympics. Notably Ullrich and Lance skipped out on the Olympics. Tyler may have felt he had to risk it...he'd botched the Tour and was on the hook for his big contract.

quote]

A reasonable arguement can be made that it is getting harder as he gets older to fully prepare for the event every year. Very few of us, if any can relate to what he does to prepare, and he said it himself after last year that it was very hard to prepare for that years race. maybe if he takes the year off and someone else stands on the podium, it will reignite the fire under him. Just a reasonable arguement, that's all.

I guess I can take another rest day this week. I hope he doesn't change his mind.

many knowledgeable observers of the sport have criticized LA for being a one trick pony by concentrating on the tour only. The average American ballsports fan thinks the TDF IS cycling. LA may be responding to his critics by concentrating this year on the classic monuments of the sport, which have in recent years been eclipsed by the sheer enormity of the TDF. In this respect he will be doing a great service to the sport by focusing media coverage on the classics by declaring them to be his season's focus, enlightening the world that cycling is much much more than the TDF. Kinda like there is more to track than just the olympics.

let the head games begin

Does this mean that he'll run a marathon? If so, I predict 2:11

I think he will break 2:10, I mean think of the Vo2 max on that sucka!

Didn't his wife run 3:34:05?

Word is that Ullrich gained 20 pounds after reading this article...

how would Jason Rexing go in the Tour De France? I predict he could take the yellow jersey off Lance

He may actually be a bit bored by TDF these days as he has been completely dominant. Lance has admitted that his narrow 2003 victory was due to a lack of condition and some illness issues.

I think focusing on the one day classics is rather cool. It's sort of like Khannouchi or Geb saying, "The long stuff isn't fun any longer. I'd love to take a crack at being #1 at 1500 before I hang up the spikes."