Breadpudding

I wonder how Contador feels to be over shadowed by the third place finisher. He gets first and wins the Tour overall and yet the third place finisher (Lance Armstrong for those of you who somehow live under a rock locked in a tomb), gets more attention.

johnny99

Obviously, the US-media is biased towards US athletes. If you read the British papers, both Armstrong and Contador are overshadowed by Wiggins and Cavendish. I guarantee that Contador is not overshadowed in the Spanish press. Probably not in the French press, either.

daxr

He sure didn't look overshadowed on the podium. Lance, on the other hand, looked distinctly uncomfortable, like he was getting some kind of consolation prize.

Next year I'm looking forward to more racing, less team politics. Still waiting to see where Contador goes, but its bound to be a better situation.

OrionKhan

Its probably better that Lance didn't go to the Astana team victory party last night. He would been a killjoy sitting there brooding over his beer.


I'm curious to see what Astana does for the Vuelta. Of course with no Lance, it will probably be harmony again.

Paco97

Paul and Phil said that viewership of Le Tour is up 50-60% worldwide because of Lance!! They said the majority of the crowd was cheering for Lance. He is the Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods of Le Tour. You can't expect the American Media to ignore Lance in the tour. Whether you like him or not, he is could for the sport, unless he gets busted for doping, just as Tiger is good for golf. The more the sport grows in the US the more mainstream the sport goes and the better the support we receive on a local and National level. We should all hope that Lance stays around for several mroe years.

erader

hell yeah he's pissed. he has been pissed for months because the team had already turned on him and he couldn't get out of his contract.

instead or launching a war of words in the media or via twitter contador trained harder and got into the best shape of his life.

while his team and the announcers maligned him in the press and the social messaging network contador let his legs do the talking.

could you imagine the gaps AC would have created if he were able to ride his own race? the competition really wasn't as tough as phil and paul led you to believe.

ed rader

Jose Perez

It was this exact thing that caused sastre to pitch a fit last week. You gotta feel for a guy who's kicking ass and taking names, yet is regarded as the number 2 story on his own team.

maddyfish

I have a problem with this statement.

I have seen Tiger Woods play in person several times. He is spoiled, foul mouthed, and unpleasant to be near, and prone to 1/2 hour long temper tantrums. We walked away from the course during one of his foul mouthed rants, and I will not go back until this infant gorws up.

Armstrong gets a bad rap sometimes for his attitude (which wasn't that bad in the past, and is certainly good now). And Woods is treated like a god. Woods can only hope and aspire to be the athlete that Armstrong is.

OrionKhan

Hey, I don't mind the media swarming around him. Its the blind idol worship that has gotten out of hand that bothers me. Lance is great for the sport. No doubt.

But the idea that he didn't cause the rift on Astana has never been brought up by American tv media. Astana was fine before Lance showed. Now, because Contador wouldn't bend to Lance's will, there's a rift. And somehow AC is the problem. He demonstrated that he was the best GT rider by far in professional cycling. Lance wouldn't even go to the Astana "team" celebration the other night. But that never gets brought up. Only that somehow AC cost Kloden a shot at the podium. Get real. Nobody on Astana was capable of beating Andy Schleck outside of AC. Levi might have had a chance, but bad luck took him out.

Who's the one who's been making the backhanded comments about his teammate to the media throughout the Tour? Lance. Lance was first one making faces and comments about AC's attacks. If he's the true "team leader" then he needs to shut the f---up during the race. Lance has been pissed because AC wouldn't back down. When has it ever been okay for the "team leader" (in any sport) to air dirty laundry in the media? Never. If doesn't say anything, nobody even knows its an issue. He didn't know what was going on between AC, Kloden, and the Schlecks because his ass got dropped on the climb. But he's the first one makin' comments and talking about how it wasn't part of the plan. But the American media eats it up. Lance is above Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan when it comes to hero worship. The mainstream media has never taken shots at Lance like Tiger and Jordan have taken. Hell, Tiger gets rips if he refuses to comment on some non-golf related social issue. Lance comes in an disrupts the harmony of the top team in cycling and all is good. "That Contador kid is dumb....he's not a team player...he's hurting the team...."

Hell, I like Lance. I rooted for him in all of his TdF victories. He's done great work for cancer research and awareness. He's been great for raising the popularity of cycling. I respect the fact that he thought he could come in and win. Did a helluva job to get on the podium. But for him to act like he's blameless in this whole Astana situation is utter crap. And the media just completely ignores it. That's wrong. And that's what pisses off a lot of people.

oldbobcat

Exactly.

Johnny Colnago

A couple of visits to Dr. Ferrari and he'll be up there in no time!

lowlife1975

orionkhan's posts are always 100% spot on...

redfooj

You described armstrong.

also, since the fanboys cant critique contador's athleticism, they resorted to attacking his intelligence. thats infantile behavior.
my sarcasm meter hasnt gone off. maybe it needs new batteries

rogwilco

Indeed. I read an article, where he's quoted with saying, that this Tour was especially difficult and complicated for him, because he had to accomplish two victories - one in the Tour de France and one his team's hotel (yeah, apparently he was that explicit about it). And that Armstrong tried everything he could to undermine Contador's leadership. I think the chances of him ever working again with Bruyneel and/or Armstrong are exactly zero.

Armstrong also didn't appear happy or satisfied at all during Contadors tour d'honneur to Paris, despite playing the gracious sportsman in his public statements (which I do give him credit for).

I think it's very obvious now (and maybe we'll hear more about the specifics later), that the struggle between Contador and Armstrong was not tactics or "soap opera" to make the Tour more interesting - like some people claimed on Bikeforums - but a full on civil war in the Astana team.

So yes, Contador is pissed, but not for the reasons stated in the OP, and so is Armstrong also.

botto 

corrected.

roadwarrior

Yeah, you pretty much don't want your kids around him if he's playing bad. I lost count of the number of thrown clubs at the British Open.

For what he does in a round, in most golf clubs you'd get a warning letter, then a suspension.

For a good look, read "Are You Kidding Me?"...the book written by Feinstein about Mediate and Woods at the US Open last year.

Real bike racing is a nasty tough sport. Lance has been a good leader, getting people around him that will support the goal. A good observation yesterday on team building, where Lance is an expert, and Contador (if I recall the quote correctly) is not "smart enough" to do that.

Contador is a tremendous natural talent. But he would not ever have the control that Lance has had and will have.

Someone else mentioned Contador's desire to go to another team a while back...where's he going to go where the situation was different? Every team good enough to support a potential Tour winner already had a rider to support. And that's if they had any money.

What will be interesting to watch is what riders Lance and Bruyneel can attract to their new team.

rogwilco

Maybe I'm naive, but that was actually the primary thing I hated about Armstrong's TdF victories, how he always kept his team on such a short leash. I like captains that sometimes let the riders in their team do their own thing, achieve some glory in their own right, even if it's not helpful to the overall goal.

With Armstrong, everything and everyone was completely subordinate to the goal of getting the yellow jersey in Paris, without even an inch of leeway to allow anything else.

bratton

Agreed. I find Armstrong's style of racing rather boring.

hocker

+1

wearyourtruth

Contador probably is a little pissed, though i imagine he's much happier now in paris than he was earlier in the tour.

I don't know whether Contador realized it or not (or cares) but Armstrong being in the Tour and being on Astana and being 3rd on the podium means that a heck of a lot of people know the name of Alberto Contador and his 4 victories who otherwise would have no idea and paid little attention. Regardless of what sort of media spin is put on which rider, anywhere there was Armstrong, there was Contador. "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

OrionKhan

Posted this article on another thread. But its relevant here too.

https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090727/..._de_france_208

"Contador is that good, so I don't see how I would have been higher than that, even in the other years," said Armstrong, who won the Tour seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 before retiring. "I think his performance this year would have beaten my performances in '01 and '04 and '05."

oldbobcat

It's not like Contador was the breaking a new story. Armstrong and Bruyneel had begun their insinuating sniping and twittering against Contador early in the second week, and anyone who couldn't see that something was wrong just wasn't paying attention. That Contador maintained was able to conduct himself to Paris with restraint and composure and still answer questions about the team so tactfully speaks well for himself. He will have no trouble finding a team for next year.

The only fans who think badly of Contador are the ones who hang on every word of Armstrong, Liggett, Sherwin, and Roll.

Keith99

And just how often did The Vrs. announcers point out that if Contador won this year he would be only the 3rd person ever to win 4 Grand Tours while still 26? I could have missed it, but surely they didn't point it out often. If Contador was American we would have had that pointed out almost every stage. Of course if Contador had real team support we may well also have had the chance to be asking when was the last time someone won the TDF by more than 10 minutes.

Oh yea, the other 2 riders to have 4 wins while still 26 are Merckx and Hinault.

erader

i think contador beat hinault's age record record for winninng all three GTs too.

ed rader

wearyourtruth

i'm not saying Versus is unbiased. i'm not saying contador shouldn't get a fairer share of airtime. what i'm saying is that there are X amount of people in the world who watched the tour because of armstrong that otherwise wouldn't have ever tuned in, and unless they happened to tune in 2 years ago, would have no idea who the hell Contador is. I'm not talking about the number of times his name/achievements are mentioned, i'm talking about the number of people who are paying attention when they are mentioned.