Lance a Traitor?
Just 30 minutes after writing about how we should give Lance Armstrong a break, he goes and does something inexcusable. Today’s stage 3 in The Tour de France was one seemingly set up for the sprinters….but several experienced riders knew that a section of crosswinds was awaiting the peloton less than 25 miles from the finish. Team Columbia–HTC used this knowledge to their advantage by positioning the entire team at the front just before the turn onto the crosswind battered roads. There were a few people that just happened to be there with them, including Thor Hushovd, because he was just following Mark Cavendish’s (team Columbia-HTC) wheel. Other people that “just happened to be there” at the right time were Lance Armstrong and his loyal helper Yaroslav Popovych. The Astana members in the break helped drive the pace high enough to drop their team leader, Alberto Contador, behind by 40 seconds. This 40 seconds was enough to catapult Armstrong over Contador in the standings, thus making him the highest placed Astana member and the team leader.
Think this through….. Had Armstrong been the highest ranked Astana teammate coming out of the prologue, would team directors allowed Contador to leapfrog Armstrong in the standings by breaking away? Not a chance. Armstrong would have been livid had someone done it to him. His true colors shined through today. Similar to sponsors not living up to their commitments, Armstrong did not live up to his today.
Leave a Reply