Originally Posted by
OrionKhan
Actually, the wedge was driven in way back when Lance decided to come back and ride with Astana. If you went asked every rider in the Tour, they would say Contador is the guy to beat. Astana had a leader that has one all 3 grand tours in the last 2 years. Clearly Contador is the top GC contender. Lance could have chosen any team to ride for. (I personally would have loved to see him on Columbia or Garmin)
Lance created the problem by choosing Astana.
I haven't seen any discussion/analysis of this (maybe because I wasn't paying attention when Lance first announced his return - I ignored the first few rumors as likely "false buzz").
Why, exactly, would Lance pick a team with a clear top-tier, in-his-prime GC man already heading it? Does he trust only Bruyneel as DS that much? Does he not respect/like AC that much? If Lance wanted to be "top dog", there were other teams that would have made more sense, but did he think Astana was the only team that would give him the best chance to win again? If he couldn't win, did he want to be on the team that had someone else win GC?