The Day that Lance Armstrong Lost the Tour
By Bob Roll
Verbier might be looked back upon the day that Lance Armstrong lost the 2009 Tour de France and the day that Alberto Contador established his superiority, but I assure you, that this bike race is not over. Considering the stages to come Lance Armstrong did what was necessary today, although it was unbelievably painful to keep himself in contention to win the Tour de France overall. The end of the day Lance finished 9th, but not that far behind Contador who was absolutely flying up the last mountain.
Verbier proves to be a strategic point in the race and early in the tour we hadn’t had a mountain top finish which didn’t provide us anything to look back upon as a pivotal stage, but the stage to verbier most certainly did do that. Armstrong finds himself in second place overall, 1:37 seconds behind Alberto Contador his own teammate. I promise you that if Contador was on a different team and Lance was not a teammate it would be a completely different set of circumstances and he would have promised at the end of today’s stage to attack relentlessly to chip away at that lead, although they are teammates I believe that the aggression is not over with and that we will see an attacking on the final Saturday of the bike race up to the monster of the provence Mont Ventoux.
Between now and then is the Time Trial around Annecy . The time trial of course, an individual event, each man against the clock on his own. Lance Armstrong- little bit heavier than Alberto Contador little bit faster on the flats a little more power and the Annecy Time Trial, a much different affair then the stage 1 Time Trial which had a big hill half way through. The advantage there was toward Contador physiologically speaking, but in the last Time Trial of the bike race this coming Thursday Lance has a chance to take back some of the time that Contador got on today’s stage. This bike race is most certainly not done- wrapped –signed- sealed or delivered. For Contador there’s still a lot of racing left most of which favors Armstrong and I think after the Time Trial they will be much more closely matched in time then it will be an all out battle on the slopes of Mont Ventoux.
Today was a great stage it showed the world that Alberto Contador was supreme when it comes to climbing, but the Tour de France is long and the road is winding and nobody knows the outcome until it happens and I’m sure that Lance has not yet surrendered. Lots of racing to come…stay tuned
