Is this guy a machine or what? Greatest sportsman as far as I am concerned and what an inspiration. Could not hang with Contador (11 years younger) today though Man I wanted him to get the yellow jersey. Contador looked fresh while Armstrong looked bit shot out near the end.

I wonder if he can win TDF one more time? What say you? Everyone was counting him out at almost 38 but he is still there at the top after being out for 4 years. He should never have retired

I think he is in with a good chance, I also watched today and was willing him to grab the back wheel of Contador on the break

Yeah just did not happen did it? Contador just pulled away fast and fluidly. Gap between Contador and Lance is only 2 seconds. Tomorrow is a tough day so let's see what happens. I feel Contador will increase the lead tomororw.

BBC-

Do you know if Lance Armstrong in the World Championships in Mendrisio in September 2009?

It would have been a mistake to follow Contador. Simply because the team wants to win the race. I would be very surprised is LA wins the Tour.

Pharmstrong specifically stated in an interview after yesterdays stage that if Contador attacked today he would not go after him. That he would not attack his team mate.

I had a feeling Contador would attack today to show who the real boss is. I think Lance didn't have the legs to go with him though and set himself up to cover for that with the interview he gave yesterday.

The way Contador went today though reminded me a little of the accelerations of Rasmussen two years ago. Pity chicken isn't in this tour to have a real ding dong battle with Johans new puppy.

I was personally hoping that Cancelarra would have the legs to hold the yellow today. I was dissapointed when he started to go backwards.

I won't deny that I would love to see Lance in yellow.

He's so good in front of the cameras that it's hard to judge if he was really following team orders or not today. He did look good at the front of the peleton for a while but when Conti kicked, LaLa didn't look like he had the spark in him to respond. If he's going to win a stage he's going to have to go from a long way out.

Pharmstrong? Not fair. Most tested cyclist More like Pharmapeloton, not just Lance. Contador and rest of the cyclists are hardly Pharma virgins
The field is level so no point playing the pharmstrong card.

Most tested Athlete!

The testing is pointless when it can't detect what is being done. The only way of getting them is through legal means.

My favorite comment from Lance about Contador's attack was "“It wasn’t really to the plan, I didn’t expect him to go with the plan, so that was no surprise.”

Contador is definitely more capable of accelerating like that than Armstrong is, and probably better than Armstrong was even in '99-'05. Once Contador did that, Armstrong was forced to stay in the pack and follow the responses of people from other teams because of team politics, so we never got to find out whether Lance could have reeled him back in over the next 2 km, which might have been interesting to see. If he and Levi had been able to work together to do that, I think that it would have been very possible. Lance certainly didn't look like he was struggling to match the pace of any of the other riders in the chase group.

There aren't that many more chances to see Armstrong and Contador go head-to-head. The Verbier climb isn't particularly tough or long, and Contador is likely to follow team orders there and stay in the Astana formation. The individual Time Trial in Annecy will obviously be extremely important. If there are only Astana riders left at the top of standings after that then I expect that Johan will tell the boys that they can sort it all out in the last 5 km of the Ventoux, in which there could be no team orders (I hope). It will be interesting to see whether Contador can still use his punchy style on a super-long climb like that, and after three weeks of hard racing - that should separate the men from the boys.

Unfortunately, that means that it doesn't look like there will be any more important action for the next 10 days - they really should have scheduled a time trial during the second week to make it more interesting.

I with Eire on this one. Also, as much as I do respect his apparent physical accomplishments, I can't stand him as a person..arrogant and selfish. He is so far up himself I don't think he can see sunlight anymore. His use of Twitter is designed purely as a way of manipulating the media and publicity in the way he wants. I admire him for him winning his battle against cancer, but millions of others do it without thinking they are bigger than Jesus afterwards.

But thats just my $0.02

Well Lance is more real than Jesus ever was Yes millions win their battle against cancer but they don't then go on and win TDF 7 times in total. So the guy is special. Plus arrogant or not I was not looking for a boyfriend anyway
As far as doping etc is concerned you guys are making out like Lance is the only one who does it, completely unproven anyway. Just because someone does doping don't mean they will win TDF 7 times. You think Contador is clean? Cancellara? Give me a break.

Contador did put in a lot of effort to only gain 22 seconds. I still think it is going to be decided on the climb to Ventoux.

I tend to feel the team-time trial so early in the race has backfired somewhat. It has narrowed GC contention down to a handful, and even then it seems they are almost all in the same team! Not that the TTT would have necessarily changed the end result, its just not exciting watching a 3 horse race.

Hmm...

Lance was destined to win the tours before he got Cancer. A pro triathelete at 16, An elite world champion at 21 years old. A little too heavy to be a tour winner due to his upper body mass from the swimming...

Then suddenly gets cancer, dissapears for a few years, loses a shed load of weight... and still keeps his genetics and the years of training he did as a kid...

Now if you had an illness and had to take time off work to recover, I am sure you would go back to your job after you got the all clear. So did Lance. He had to work... his work is to race a bike. He happened to go back to work with the feeling that the pain of climbing could not compare to chemo.... and a new body composition didn't harm things either.

He admits himself that Cancer helped him win the tour!!!

As for the doping. I am not Naive. They are all at it. Contador was linked with Operation Puerto, All the tour podium winnners from the Armstrong years have had some doping run in. They are all at it... But they don't all go on with the "Most tested athlete in the world" thing.


Another thing.

Cycling News yesterday reported that 50 riders at the tour are being specifically targeted based on their blood passport values taken at the medical tests two days before the tour. Guess who has had the drug controllers visit them twice in the last two days!!!

That does not contradict anything I said Which is that he is special and has a winning mentality.

Maybe they are scared and not the most tested?

They can visit him 50 times a day. Don't mean anything and is not some smoking gun. On twitter he said that he welcomes these visits as it is a good thing.

Of course he welcomes them, there is no test for autologous blood doping! And it allows him to keep going with the most tested Athlete crap.

The only way they will get caught is be legal means. Although the blood passport can hint at what they are doing (hence 50 getting special treatment!) providing they keep their levels under a certain level they can get away with it.

I thought WADA had already developed a test for autologous doping by checking levels of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate within the sample's red-blood cells?

Also, it should be noted that a drug test is not limited solely to the analysis of blood / urine but also searches of athletes houses, mobile homes, hotel rooms etc to search for medical equipment and substances.

Carrying out a blood transfusions on the road takes some doing when you consider the risks of infection, hiding, transporting (frozen blood and equipment) and getting rid of the used items.

I agree that there are likely to be many riders in the peloton still doping in some fashion, what I fail to understand is how they get around the logistical nightmare of blood doping on the tour.

As far as I am aware it is being worked on... but not approved for use yet. Maybe they have it for this years Tour and are not announcing it in the hope of getting people the way they got them for CERA last year. But still they avoid the positive tests too. Look at Bernard Kohl. Two positive tests out of 200. HE claimed that at least 100 of them should have been positive!!!

All the major drugs busts have been through legal means. Festina, Operation Puerto and now Human Plasma in Austria.

As for the logistics of the doping... I have wondered about that myself. But a transfusion of a unit or two of packed red cells only takes a short time, and not too much equipment. Despite this I still wonder how they transport the blood and the equipment secretly team cars are searched almost as a matter of course at any random border controls (and nearly always entering Switzerland).

Lance didn't win 7 times without the tireless help and dedication of a strong and well-financed team. George Hincapie practically sacrificed his own career for LA during his years at Disco. And when Lance was wearing the #1, he made it clear that the other riders worked to get him and keep in yellow. But now he's wearing #2 and he can't handle the thought of working for Contador. Its a bit hypocritical really, isn't it?

Also, I feel LA realises Contador has the potential to win 7 GCs and more.