So now that the battle on the bikes has ended, the war of words seems to be fully underway. To whit, Alberto Contador remarks to the spanish press that there was palpable tension between himself and Lance Armstrong during the Tour.
And we’re all shocked, of course.
To whit, in return, LA “Twitters” a response. Now, before we discuss the response, can we all agree that arguing via Twitter seems, well, not exactly manly? I mean, Lance, you’re a worldwide celebrity with dozens of microphones in your face at all times, awaiting nothing more than your views on matters you know nothing about. Please, for god’s sake, resist the urge to “tweet.”
Anyhoo….
Lance flames AC about not being a team player. Lance admonishes the youngster to keep in mind, “there’s no I in team.” Apparently those remarks pertained to the fact that AC won the Tour without sufficient regard to aid he got from teammates and without young AC calibrating his tactics to both win the Tour and allow his teammates to sweep the podium, presumably sharing the spotlight with Lance and Andreas Kloden. We would add, nor did Alberto do anything to break the fall of Levi Leipheimer — thus Alberto’s got some bloodstains on his hands for that act of callous indifference.
Apparently Alberto, in Lance’s view, further transgressed from good form when he took opportunities to leave his Astana teammates behind on a couple of particular mountain stages when the Astana team mates felt they were already pedaling plenty fast, thank you very much. Presumably Lance would have wanted AC to balance AC’s own ambitions enough to realize AC might want to stick with his mates and possibly even help carry them to the top for one big Astana love-fest. All for one, man. Semper fi.
Instead, AC quite selfishly took actions that resulted in putting himself safely and comfortably atop the Tour podium with only one, not two, Astana teammates sharing the moment.
Okay, so Lance’s point isn’t exactly wrong. Alberto did seem kind of focused on winning the Tour, and his track record of winning the past 4 major tours he’s entered shows this is becoming a bit of a habit.
By contrast, we look longingly back to the years of Lance’s 7 Tour wins. Veritable Woodstock’s, they were, with Lance literally pulling Postal/Discovery teammates through stage after stage to ensure they got heaps of stage wins and podium girls and lots of time atop the podium, actual statistics notwithstanding. So unselfish does he remember himself being, Lance recalls how he and Bruyneel purposely picked teammates for Lance who they determined were MOST IN NEED of sitting on as Lance pulled for mile after mile.
Yeah, that’s the Lance that Lance remembers.
Of course, it might not have seemed that way if you watched it on TV. But that’s all about it being raced in France, and you know the French didn’t give Lance any assistance when it came to public relations. And the Brits were not exactly allies, either.
Go back and watch those Tour videos and not only will you see that they’ve been slyly edited to make it look like Lance has, year after year, surrounded himself with selfless drones who gutted themselves to lead him day after day through of the race — but you’ll hear those no-good Francophile English guys Liggett and what’s his name pretty much slandering Lance with trash-talk about how the team was “built around Lance,” and how nobody else was supposed to have a chance to do anything but help Lance win.
Blasphemy. Or worse.
Even the podium videos are heavily Photoshopped to remove any of Lance’s teammates and put in their place guys like Ullrich and Basso and so on. We all know that didn’t happen.
No, Lance was always the “US” in “US Postal, the “WE” in “Discovawy.” And that’s one of the things we loved most about him.
The thing that’s really wrong with Alberto Contador.
Comparing these two guys, there’s just no end to the differences, is there?
Like the way Lance came into cycling and quickly became a world-class time-trialer, but then became a world-class climber also. Alberto, on the other hand, started as a climber and then turned into a kick-ass time-trialer. Weird, I know. And Alberto, he wins a few Grand Tours and next thing he wants is to bring along a few hand-picked homeys like Benjamin Noval who are dedicated servants and also happen to speak the same language Alberto does. Unbelievable — I hear you. Oh, and on top of all that, he thinks that winning a few GTs means he should be THE team captain. Like there should only be one on each team.
Lance, avowed bleadding-heart democrat and one-for-all musketeer we know him to be, says, “hey, Alberto, why so greedy? Let’s have EVERYBODY be team captain this year!”
We wept at the generosity.
Fortunately, a last-minute compromise was struck when Lance figured out that if eight or nine guys are going to race, nobody would know who the various Team Captains were unless each one had someone had pulling for them — so Lance offered that he, Leipheimer, Kloden, and Alberto should serve as official Astana domestiques for the poor wretches on the squad who hadn’t had so many chances to win Grand Tours as they have. Folks, Hollywood couldn’t write a story as big as our man Lance. [Unless they do, and then it'll either be Jake Gillenhooy or Matt Damon playing the role of St. Armstrong.]
We asked our trusty research department to go back and find some suspect statistics, which is their specialty, which we could sprinkle into the article to provide a facade of authoritativeness, which is an impressive word. Now, if you’re a certified Lance-lover you might want to skip the rest of this rant, because we all know statistics lie. For example, in over twenty thousand miles that Lance has ridden in his various Tours de France over the years, the statistics say that he only “pulled” for twenty miles. If that were the case, that would mean he sat in the pack or behind the hired help something like 99.99% of the time. And when Lance was winning in France, the record books say that only one time did one of his teammates actually win a single stage — and NEVER did he have a teammate on the podium anywhere near it.
That’s not his fault. Nobody realizes what pathetic riders he sought out. Even Hincapie was quoted as saying, “I was supposed to win races?” Poor chap.
What the statistics don’t mention, is how many times he hurried to the service of his team by taking a ride on the private jet of his good friend and chief hanger-on, Robin Williams. And did the rest of the team join him on the comedian’s Gulfstream? Of course not. Imagine how cramped they would have been squeezing in like that when perfectly acceptable coach seats were available on commercial airlines.
How many guys would be so thoughtful?
Clearly, Lance leads by example. And after each stage, he allowed the team to arrange a helicopter to transport him back to the hotel just so he could get his massage out of the way first — ensuring the team masseuse would be completely free for the bus pulled in with the rest of the boys. Whatever their names were, Lance would say fondly. Servant leadership, I believe it’s called.
And all he wants is for Alberto to pick up some of these traits, for the good of the whole team. Hopefully Alberto will get his head right and realize the gift that Lance is offering via his oh so instructive tweets.
So Lance is off to form a new club, seemingly named “LiveStrong/Radio Shack p/b AARP” and is actively recruiting anybody except the best rider in the world. Preference will be given to applicants who show an affinity for Early Bird specials, suspenders and iced tea, Metamucil, and the movie Cocoon.
Contador, by contrast, has been cast aside to the waiting arms of EVERY OTHER PROFESSIONAL TEAM in the world. Somehow, we think he’ll come out alright.
