A comeback for Armstrong?
A rumor about a comeback by seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has been flitting around in cyberspace for a while, and Velonews.com’s Neal Rogers reports that a comeback is indeed in the works.
According to Rogers, Armstrong will appear in five races — the Tour of California and the Tour de Georgia in the U.S. and Paris-Nice, the Dauphine Libre and the Tour de France. He would make his comeback for Astana, which is basically his old United Postal/Discovery Channel team rebranded under the Khazakstan sponsorship and operated by his old boss, Johan Bruyneel. And Astana rides on Armstrong’s favored bike brand, Trek.
The most interesting aspect of Rogers’ scoop is that Armstrong has registered with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which requires a six-month lead-up of testing before competition, and that he would make all of his anti-doping testing available via the Internets.
And therein might be the primary reason Armstrong would come back. Armstrong was dogged by rumors of doping throughout his run of seven TdF titles, and the noise hasn’t abated in his retirement, and in fact, almost has gotten worse, particularly with his public jousting with three-time TdF winner Greg LeMond.
Armstrong always has insisted that he raced clean, and perhaps a comeback could put those suspicions to rest if he would do the unthinkable and win again, after a three-Tour absence, with his anti-doping records available for public consumption.
But then again, if Armstrong came back and failed to keep up, critics would use that against him and say that he couldn’t win clean, so therefore he must of doped, etc. etc.
Be that as it may, an Armstrong comeback would be exciting for the drama if nothing else. The big question would be whether the Tour de France would even want him back. Many in France think he doped, and tests on some old samples from ‘99 supposedly came up positive for EPO a few years ago, tho the tests were conducted outside of World Anti-Doping Agency protocol.
Many, including me, suspected that the TdF’s decision not to invite Astana to the race this year had as much to do with the organizers’ feelings about Armstrong and Bruyneel as it had to do with their publicly stated reason of past doping offenses by Astana riders under previous management. So, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Armstrong announced a comeback on Astana, and the Tour told Astana to stay away again. That would be as ridiculous as the Tour essentially barring ‘07 champ Alberto Contador this year with Astana, but considering the organizers’ track record, you can’t discount the possibility.
According to Rogers, Armstrong’s announcement is expected to come in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair. For its part, Astana denied the report to the Associated Press, and cyclingnews.com quoted Bruyneel as saying he didn’t knew where the rumors were coming from.
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Has anyone warned the Armadillo’s?