Cycling Capsules: Tour ready for start with Armstrong back
MONACO - The Tour de France is ready for another edition with Lance Armstrong, and Saturday's opening stage may show whether he's ready to challenge for another title.
Armstrong's 37-year-old legs will be tested immediately when the three-week race begins with a 9.6-mile time trial. The stage will be run along the hilly streets and hairpin turns of Monaco, a Mediterranean principality better known for Formula One than for huffing two-wheelers.
The ride will likely offer an early shakeout of potential contenders who want to at least hold their own in the race against the clock.
Specialists in the discipline include Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who won gold in the time trial at the Beijing Olympics, and Bradley Wiggins of Britain.
They could capture the leader's yellow jersey, though they aren't expected to fare as well when the race reaches the Pyrenees in Stage 7. Title contenders to watch Saturday include Cadel Evans of Australia, Denis Menchov of Russia and 2007 champion Alberto Contador of Spain, for whom the course is almost tailor-made because of its hills.
The main race favorites - except Armstrong and American teammate Levi Leipheimer - will start last as the 180 riders set off one by one.
Defending champion Carlos Sastre of Spain, wearing the yellow jersey and No. 1 bib, will go last. Armstrong asked to be the first Astana rider to go. He'll ride 18th, nearly three hours before Sastre - time enough for weather conditions to change.
Armstrong used to be an expert time trialer, and part of the suspense will be seeing whether he's slowed with the years.
Tour organizers were forced to tinker with the full rider list until the last day Friday after French sports authorities ordered them to let Belgian sprint star Tom Boonen compete.
Before a French Olympics committee panel, the Quick Step speedster won his appeal of a ban handed down by Tour organizers after he tested positive for cocaine for the second time in a year.
The Tour has been bruised by three straight years of doping scandals: After the 2006 race, Floyd Landis was stripped of his title for testing positive for testosterone. The next year, leader Michael Rasmussen was sent home for lying about his whereabouts in pre-race anti-doping checks. Last year, six riders were caught doping, including Bernhard Kohl, the third-place finisher and King of the Mountains winner.
Doping scandals hit Astana especially hard. In 2006, the team was prevented from riding because of a scandal on the eve of the race. The next year, it was thrown out in mid-race for another, prompting Tour organizers not to invite it at all in 2008.
Armstrong has repeatedly said he never used banned substances during his seven straight titles from 1999 to 2005, years after a dramatic comeback from his fight against testicular cancer.
Armstrong has been reunited with Johan Bruyneel, who was also his team manager during his Tour victories. Bruyneel says Contador is the man to beat, and has anointed the 26-year-old Spaniard as leader of the Astana squad.
Contador finished 31st in his first Tour in 2005, which was Armstrong's last. Contador has since won all three tours of France, Italy and Spain, one of only five riders to do so. This year, he's won two races, four stages and the Spanish time-trial championship.
Since Armstrong returned to competition this year, they have ridden together only once in a race - the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon in March - but Armstrong crashed out of it with a broken collarbone.
"Everybody has been waiting for the Tour to see this meeting of Lance and me, and it gives me added motivation - and pressure, too," Contador said.
Armstrong, once known as "Le Boss" of the Tour, can't be ruled out for victory. But his training regimen has been unorthodox in part because of his family duties, glitzy personal life and charitable work in the battle against cancer.
"What do I expect from him? Really, I don't know," Bruyneel said. "We are a bit lost. ... Alberto knows he's ready. Armstrong, we don't know."
As if cramming for a final exam, Armstrong spent Friday previewing the course but found time to keep in touch with his million-plus followers on Twitter.
"This place is going to be electric tomorrow," he tweeted.
Armstrong's comeback: real deal or whim?
MONACO - So this is what retirement ultimately might look like for Lance Armstrong: reminiscing about his Tour de France exploits to an audience of suits and evening dresses who paid $1,000 a plate to hear him and mingle with a couple of princes.
No wonder Armstrong got back into cycling. The restless kid from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, isn't quite ready to go gentle into the good night of cocktail engagements and perhaps - only he knows - a life in politics. He's not yet finished with his bike.
So Armstrong - a rebel with a cause - rolled up in denim jeans and an open-collared black shirt to a fundraiser for his cancer foundation in Monaco on Thursday night, less than 48 hours before he embarks on the most hotly anticipated comeback to the most storied race in cycling.
Monaco's Prince Albert II, a Jordanian prince and princess and the other 100 or so guests were dressed and perfumed to the nines. Armstrong apologized, telling them that in packing for the Tour, he'd omitted a tie.
"This is what you get," he said.
Before cutting out early to bank sleep for the hard roads ahead, skipping the lobster salad and roasted medallions of lamb, Armstrong did at least partly answer the burning question: what brought you back? Why, in the shadow of the casino that helped make Monaco both famous and wealthy, would you risk your Tour legacy by racing again at the possibly overripe age of 37?
Over the next three weeks, in sport's most unforgiving physical test, there is a genuine possibility that rivals 10 years his junior or more could reduce the once unbeatable Armstrong to an also-ran. The record of seven consecutive Tour wins that he built from 1999 to 2005, on the ashes of his own battle against cancer, could become an edifice to the rider Armstrong once was but no longer is.
Or, less likely, he could win again. What a story that would be.
Either way, Armstrong figures, this is a gamble he's already won. Measured in donations, pledges and support for the foundation which bears his name, Armstrong's decision to return to cycling is already paying off. It brought him those guests to the fundraiser, where an Armstrong-autographed Tour yellow jersey, a signed wheel and other items auctioned for $53,000 (38,000 euros). His campaign against cancer is going global. Despite recession, sales of Livestrong merchandise have hit new highs and donations to the foundation rose by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
"Some people from the sporting side said this is about sport, this is about him wanting to win an eighth Tour, this is about him wanting to be on TV again, this is about him missing the spotlight. That's not it at all," Armstrong told his invitees.
"I have to say that I think we have already won," he declared. "I have my own ideas and my own ambition, of course, but if we roll in third or fourth, I will unequivocally say that this has been a success."
That Armstrong and the Tour now need each other again is one of the biggest paradoxes of his comeback. In 2005, their relationship seemed over.
Armstrong quit railing against the "cynics and the skeptics" who refused to believe that a cancer-survivor could be so dominant without taking banned drugs.
Those who run the Tour suggested he wouldn't be missed. Many in cycling looked forward to a supposedly new and doubt-free era.
How misplaced those hopes proved.
After three subsequent Tours tarnished by doping scandals, even some of Armstrong's rivals now see his return as good publicity.
"He has a lot of courage to do that," said Bjarne Riis, who runs the Saxo Bank team. "We all have to thank him a lot for coming back."
Racing again can't erase the doping questions that hang over Armstrong's past exploits. The battle between those who believe in and those who doubt Armstrong has been fought to a standstill.
This time, Armstrong's entourage has leaned on cycling's powers for him to be tested as often as possible, preferably every three days. Armstrong has publicized the tests - about 34 by his count - in Twitter postings. He told cycling author John Wilcockson that one reason he's back is to silence the skeptics, so his four kids don't grow up "reading all these things about me and doping."
Make no mistake, Armstrong will win this race if he can. He's shed some 25 pounds (11 kilograms), looks like his wiry former self and as if he's enjoying the riding and being back with the boys in the peleton.
"Those of us who knew him well knew that 'retire' is not a word that is in his vocabulary," said Doug Ulman, president of the Armstrong foundation.
Claiming success with his cancer campaign before the race has even begun gives Armstrong an out should his aging legs be unable to match his on-bike ambitions. Losing won't matter so much as long as he helps teammate Alberto Contador, the 2007 champion, win again. Selfless dedication is a prized virtue in cycling and Armstrong could win fans by sacrificing himself for the Spaniard should he prove the stronger of the two. Armstrong has already laid ground for that possibility.
Basically, as always, he's got his bases covered.
John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org
NOTEBOOK: Don't count Armstrong out, Hincapie says
MONACO - George Hincapie helped Lance Armstrong win seven straight Tour de France titles and believes his old friend could surprise a lot of people this year.
Back competing after 3½ years of retirement, Armstrong will start his first Tour since 2005 on Saturday, in the opening and difficult time trial in Monaco. Many cycling experts are writing off the 37-year-old cancer survivor. But not Hincapie.
"I think he has got very good possibilities," Hincapie said on Friday. "He has trained very hard, he says he is feeling good. It's going to be exciting, but I cannot predict what he will do. I wouldn't put anything past him."
Hincapie, who spent the greatest years of his career working for Armstrong, now rides for the Columbia-High Road team, while Armstrong is with the Astana squad and using his comeback to raise awareness about cancer.
"I'm excited to see how he will do," Hincapie said. "He is the one guy that really doesn't have to be here, he is just doing it for a cause. I support his effort and I wish him the best."
Armstrong's main obstacle in his quest for an eighth Tour win is expected to be teammate Alberto Contador, the 2007 champion considered the "clear-cut favorite" by Armstrong himself.
"I don't know (their relationship), but I assume it's good because they have to eat dinner everyday and every night, and breakfast, and they have to be in the same team, so it's important they have a good relationship and I assume they do," Hincapie said.
Hincapie, who won his only individual Tour stage in a mountain stage of the 2005 Tour, would love to add another line to his record before retiring in "another year or two."
"Last year I was close at one of the hardest mountain stages, I just messed up the descent a little bit, so if I'm in the right breakaway, I think it's definitely possible," he said.
RIDERS REWARDS
The average salary of professional riders rose from $98,550 a year in 2002 to $191,470 in 2009, according to figures released by cycling's governing body, the UCI.
The increases were considerable for riders in the elite UCI ProTeams, where incomes rose from $140,786 in 2002 to $267,493 in 2009.
"This means that the majority of riders on UCI ProTeams have a good, or indeed very good, salary," the federation said.
JAPANESE DUO
Yukiya Arashiro and Fumiyuki Beppu are joining the very small roster of Japanese cyclists who have ridden the Tour de France.
This Tour is the first where two Japanese cyclists will ride in the same year. The previous Japanese riders at the Tour were Daisuke Imanaka in 1996 and Kisso Kawamuro in 1926-1927.
Arashiro and Beppu are also promoting Tokyo's bid to organize the Olympic Games in 2016.
"I used to watch the heroes of the Tour de France when I was a kid and I am proud to be here this year to follow their path", said Beppu, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong.
"Young people need heroes and I'm confident Tokyo 2016 will deliver fantastic Games which will enable elite athletes to reach their peak performances in the best possible environment."
-- Samuel Petrequin
Sastre: Armstrong needs to learn about respect
MONACO - Defending Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre says Lance Armstrong could use a lesson in respect after the Texan reportedly called the race last year "a bit of a joke."
Sastre, a 34-year-old Spanish veteran, says seven-time Tour champion Armstrong is entitled to his opinion - but insists it's the wrong one.
"It his point of view, it's his words - his life," Sastre said at a news conference Friday. "He is a great champion, he won seven Tours de France, a world championship, he's a great rider."
"But behind every rider must be a person, and on that point, maybe he needs to learn something more," he said, adding: "There is something wrong with him about respect."
In the new book, "Lance - The Making of the World's Greatest Champion" by John Wilcockson, Armstrong is said to have recounted his early musings about a possible comeback after the 2008 Tour.
"The Tour was a bit of a joke this year. I've got nothing against Sastre ... or Christian Vande Velde," he was quoted as saying shortly after the race last year. "Christian's a nice guy, but finishing fifth in the Tour de France? Come on!"
Vande Velde, of the Garmin-Slipstream team; Sastre, of Cervelo, and Armstrong and 2007 Tour winner and pre-race favorite Alberto Contador of Astana will square off among the 180 riders set to start the race Saturday in Monaco.
Sastre shrugged off all the attention heaped on Armstrong and Contador, saying he prefers to express himself "in the saddle," not in the media spotlight.
But make no mistake - he will be the only rider wearing jersey No. 1 on Saturday. Quietly, he has demonstrated solid recent form with two mountain-stage wins and a fourth-place finish overall at the Giro d'Italia in May.
The Tour better suits Sastre this year than most as the 96th edition favors climbers. Time-trials - which are not his strength - have been given relatively less importance than the mountains, where he excels.
Sastre is not the only rider overshadowed by the suspected Contador-Armstrong rivalry.
Russia's Denis Menchov, who won the Giro d'Italia in May; Australia's Cadel Evans, runner-up at the Tour for the last two years; and the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, are not to be ruled out in the title quest that ends July 26 on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
On Friday, an unofficial poll of 30 riders, race veterans and team sports directors in the French sports daily L'Equipe showed that most don't expect Sastre to make the podium this year. They picked Contador first, Evans was second, and Menchov third. Armstrong and Sastre were tied for fifth.
But Sastre believes otherwise.
"I think that I am ready for this race," he said. "Winning the Tour de France last year has changed a lot of things, but myself: I'm the same person."
But can he win again?
"Yes, why not?" he said with a grin.
-- Jamey Keaten
Boonen cleared to ride in Tour de France
MONACO - Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen was cleared Friday to compete in the Tour de France after winning his appeal of a ban for testing positive for cocaine
The French Olympic committee's arbitration panel handed down the decision a day before the Tour is set to start in Monaco.
"Obviously, I'm happy. I didn't have much time to think about the race, but I'll try to give my best," Boonen said at a press conference. "I haven't looked at the road book yet, so I'm going to mark the stages where I can do something. It will be a real challenge."
Boonen appealed to French sports authorities for permission to ride in the three-week race after a court said it didn't have jurisdiction in the case.
Tour organizers ASO had sought to ban Boonen by saying the Belgian had damaged the race's image after testing positive in an out-of-competition test in April.
Cocaine is not banned during out-of-competition periods, and the International Cycling Union (UCI) decided not to take action against the rider.
"The management of the Tour de France believes that, considering the great champion that Tom Boonen is, he will relish the opportunity that has been given to him and that he will have an exemplary attitude during the event," Tour organizers said in a statement.
Boonen's Quick Step team welcomed the ruling, but regretted that a decision came so late.
"I'm relieved but I'm sorry that we had to go up to here," said team manager Patrick Lefevere. "This is not the ideal scenario. Pressure has been huge, not only on Tom Boonen's shoulders, but on the whole team."
Boonen, one of the world's best sprinters and one-day classic riders, resumed cycling last month - including the Dauphine Libere stage race.
In 2007, Boonen won the green jersey awarded to the Tour's best sprinter. He has already proved his form this season by winning Paris-Roubaix for a third time.
Boonen, who has won six stages on the Tour, will replace Australian Allan Davis in the Quick Step team.
-- Samuel Petrequin
Menchov aims for double with win at Tour de France
MONACO - Denis Menchov won the Giro d'Italia and will attempt to capture the Tour de France to become the first man to win both races in the same year since the late Marco Pantani in 1998.
The 31-year-old Russian impressed in claiming the biggest win of his career in Italy in May and turns his attention to the Tour where he will have the help of his strong Rabobank team and rising star Robert Gesink.
The best young rider of the Tour in 2003, Menchov is one of six riders considered joint-favorites this year along with Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong, Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck and defending champion Carlos Sastre.
"I feel good, comfortable and confident," Menchov said on Friday during a press conference at the eve of the first stage in Monaco. "I feel relaxed after my victory on the Giro and I'm looking forward to starting the race tomorrow. It will be difficult, but I know that I can win."
With Gesink on his side, Menchov's ambitions carry added legitimacy. The 23-year-old climber from the Netherlands will be riding in his first Tour but has already confirmed his talent this season with a third-place finish in the Amstel Gold Race and by taking fourth place in the Dauphine Libere.
"Robert is an important piece of our team," Menchov said. "He is a strong guy and he is good in the mountains. I hope that we can do the same race we did last year and that we will be able to a play some tactics in the mountains."
Gesink said he wants to learn from Menchov and promised to dedicate himself to working for the Russian's victory.
"Denis is our main guy for the general classification," Gesink said. "He will be the leader of the team and the rest of us will try and help him."
In Italy, Menchov secured victory by winning two of the race's key stages - a hilltop finish and a challenging time-trial. The Russian said the Tour's opening time-trial Saturday, a 9.6-mile route with climbs, tricky hairpin bends and fast curves, would be crucial.
Besides the overall standings, the Rabobank team can aim for stage victories with riders such as the Spanish duo of Juan Antonio Flecha and former world champion Oscar Freire. Hampered by back problems this season, Freire hopes to retain the best sprinter's green jersey he won last year. But he will face a strong challenge from Briton Mark Cavendish, considered to be the king of sprints.
"It will be difficult but not impossible," Freire said. "I won the green jersey last year, so why not this year?"
Armstrong under doping watch at Tour
PARIS - France's sports minister says Lance Armstrong will be "particularly monitored" in anti-doping checks at the Tour de France this year.
Roselyne Bachelot, speaking in an interview on French cable TV on Friday, sent the warning to the seven-time Tour winner who has come out of retirement to race again in cycling's showcase.
"The (doping) controls will be multiplied, and I tell Lance Armstrong that he will be particularly, particularly, particularly monitored," Bachelot told i-Tele.
The American has denied having taken banned substances during his cycling career.
The head of France's anti-doping agency, which is working with cycling's governing body UCI on doping checks for the race, has said Armstrong will be treated like any other rider regarding drug testing.
The International Cycling Union, responding to the damage done to the sport by continual drug and cheating scandals, is planning more than 500 doping checks at this year's Tour.
"There needs to be a really very, very active fight against doping," Bachelot said. "The organizers know how much a positive doping test could have harmful effects."
The three-week race starts Saturday in Monaco.
-- Samuel Petrequin
