Lance missing being yellow by milliseconds, but Astana takes the win and puts 4 of their rides in the top 5.
Astana is a powerhouse team, with Contador, Lance, Kloden, and Leipheimer all potentially having a shot at taking yellow in Paris.
The big question of the 2009 tour still stands to be who among Astana is going to be the team leader.
Lance - the Boss, the veteran, the 7 time champ ?
Contador - the team leader, the prerace favorite?
or another?
Lance currently has the lead for the team - but will he get usurped by his own team or teammates. (Similar to the teammates racing each other with 5 time tour winner Hinault and American racer and Tour Champion Greg Lemond 1984, 85, and 86)
And the drama with team Astana. What a pain, and I suppose nothing new among the politics and sports and money. At the beginning of the Giro, after Astana hadn't been paid by the Kazakh government for months, Lance suggested that the team license be turned over to team manager Johann Bruyneel. Money troubles, on top of interpersonal differences between Lance and Contador - and potentially the banned Vinokourov returned to race for Astana (the "team created for him").
Isn't this the obvious question - Why doesn't Lance and Bruyneel start their own cycling team? Sponsored by Mellow Johnny's? After all the Lance has done, intentionally or not, to promote and grow interest of cycling in the United States - I think they have enough clout to pull that together...
I guess we will see.
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