Lance in Third Place
14 July 2009 2:32 am by spincitysd
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After nine grueling and often sweltering stages, it was the end of another long day at the Tour, this one with two daunting climbs. But now, at least for 36 hours, the riders could finally exhale.
The man in the overall leader’s yellow jersey is Rinaldo Nocentini, an Italian rider on the AG2R-La Mondiale team. After Sunday’s stage, won by Pierrick Fedrigo of the Bbox Bouygues Telecom team, Nocentini remained six seconds ahead of Astana’s Alberto Contador. Lance Armstrong, Contador’s teammate and a seven-time Tour champion, is eight seconds back in third.
Snip
The Next few stages will be for the sprinters. Lance and the other contenders will mainly be trying to stay cool and sane, not fall off the bike. The Tour will be decided in the Alps. Not only is Lance in a good position but so also are other American riders. The 15th is Bastille day, look for the French Riders to attempt a big win.
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For Lance to come back with just 12 months of training and be a serious contender for the TDF this year is amazing and a testimony to his focus and dedication.
There is a very interesting article on his http://www.livestrong.com site about his year of training – which involved loosing about 15 pounds of muscle weight from his upper body so he could compete in the climbing stages – basically a very low calorie diet while exercising legs really hard. The article said it too the Giro d’ Italia race for him to loose the last five pounds or so. The climbers intentionally keep their upper body muscles very trim so they have less weight to pull up the mountain.
I’m 57 and ride my bike 1/3 as fast as these riders (and prefer FLAT trails!), but all these top riders inspire me every year.
Team Astana is awesome – the way they control the Peleton. I’m thinking there will be an Armstrong/Contador battle on the final day (before the ride into Paris).