Former 7-time Tour de France Champion Lance Armstrong announced that he's coming out of retirement.
He says his goal is to raise awareness of the burden that cancer has on a global scale, but his spokesman says he's aiming to compete in the Tour de France again.
The 2008 Tour de France has already taken place, so we'd be looking at a July 2009 timeframe for seeing Armstrong attempt to win his eighth Tour in as many attempts.
"If I let myself get hung up on doing things that had any actual chance of success, I'd never do anything!"
Seeing this on the ESPN ticker last night was a genuine "WTF?" moment for me. Followed by: Hahahahaha - him and what team?
Ask Levi Leipheimer how hitching his wagon to Astana's star worked out for HIM this year.
I sure hope this doesn't somehow lead to a *second* year of dicking around (Olympic bronze medalist!) Levi's chances at Le Tour. (Or even Christian Vande Velde's!)
EDIT: Ooh, Levi is currently second in the Tour of Spain (lavuelta.com)! Also, if he's still on Astana...he better not be booted for Lance. That would reallllllllllly suck (unless it meant Levi could get on a team actually COMPETING in Le Tour in 2009)
Ladies and gentlemen, the following public service message is brought to you by your friends from D-Generation X, who would like to remind each and every one of you that if you're not down with that, we've got two words for you... If Lance signs to Astana for 2009, no way in hell the Tour unjustly boots Astana again. They took enough flak for it this year when Astana didn't have a seven-time champion on its roster; imagine the cries of outrage if it did?
The Tour's a joke as is; such a move would risk the Tour losing its relevance.
smark/net attack Advisory System Status is: Elevated (Holds; June 18, 2006) While the switch from Cena to RVD should alleviate some complaints, the inevitability of the belt's return to Cena (note where Summerslam is this year) and the poor initial showing by the new ECW are enough to keep the indicator where it is for now. The pieces are in place, though, especially on RAW, for improvements to be made to the IWC's psyche in the near future.
Originally posted by ekedolphin eighth Tour in as many attempts.
Of course that is not entirely true as he competed (and won some stages) in the Tour before his fight with cancer.
No matter what team he signs with (and I guess his history with Bruyneel makes Astana a good candidate) will instantly be reformed and remodeled into the team that he needs to win. If Leipheimer happens to fit in there, good for him. He might benefit (a lot) from it for the non-TdF races and/or after when Lance retires again.
Seriously, I have no doubt that if he wants to, Armstrong will win the Tour again. Expect him to lose a lot of water weight though each day due to having to pee in tubes for the French drug testers.
I didn't get to see it but heard enough about the hype everywhere to know it was going down. I'm not one of the crossover crowd but I agree from the way Mir was talking on the write up on UFC.TV there official website.
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