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(Photo: Yuzuru Sunada)
Catching up with Astana directeur-sportif Sean Yates after the opening road stage of the Tour Down Under, Road Bike Action found the Englishman chuffed with Lance Armstrong’s official maiden voyage returning to the peloton. Armstrong rode the 140-kilometer stage with apparent ease.
“We were sitting in the team car there,” recalled Yates, “We looked up the road and saw Lance there in fourth position with five team-mates around him. [It was] like he’s taken up where he left off; the last time he was riding sensibly, apart from the [Cancer Council Classic] criterium [on Sunday] was in the Tour de France when he was in the yellow jersey in 2005, with his team-mates around him.
After last Sunday’s criterium, Armstrong conceded he was a little apprehensive going round the corners – some 90 degree turns – at full tilt, but does Yates believe as the days tick by, that will all but disappear?
“Certainly; I mean, he’s never had a problem with his bike handling,” Yates said. “I think it’s quite strange coming back to the whole circus [of cycling] after three-and-a-half years, you know, and being surrounded by professional athletes, it’s quite a strange scenario.”
Of Tuesday’s scorching heat that nudged the 43 degree Celsius mark mid-afternoon, Yates said he was as well adapted as anyone. “In his home town of Austin [Texas], it gets really warm in the summer; he’s been in Hawaii, he’s been here for a week, so I think it’s not really a problem.”
“It’s hot, man,” Armstrong said after the stage. “It’s a dry heat, but it affects performance a lot. There’s really no way to perform at a high level when it’s 40 degrees [Celsius] – you just cope, and drink as much water as you can,” said ‘The Boss’, who thought he and his Astana team-mates downed close to 20 bottles of water in three-and-a-quarter hours’ racing.
The two climbs on offer proved equally unproblematic for Armstrong, though that was helped by the two-man break up front, neutralizing the situation back in the peloton. If that wasn’t the case, the Texan remarked there could “have been people [scattered] everywhere.”
There’s also been speculation aplenty on just how well Armstrong will cope in a team that’s not always about him, but Yates rebuked such a remark: “They [the Astana riders] know which side their bread’s buttered on and they’ve got a job to do and they’re up for it.”
But really, the big question is when – or if – Lance will stretch his legs.
“Never say never,” was all Yates would say. “Certainly, tomorrow is a good stage for that, and we’re all hoping the scenario is that he’s there, able to have a dig if the race is on.”
“I think tomorrow could have maybe 20 guys left [in the front group],” was the only speculation Armstrong would enter into.
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