Comments on: House Divided

By: -er

-er — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:36:38 +0000

I wonder: How many of us have already been beaten by all of this BS?

Example:
How many people know what Astana is?
vs.
How many people know what Caisse d Esparne is?

Let's not forget that nobody has a perfect record. How many times has Bruyneel gone into the Tour without a single strong dedicated leader? And how did that turn out?

I still like Alberto to win this one. I think he's got more inside than a lot of people realize, and he's PRO.

By: cocheese

cocheese — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:11:42 +0000

Mind games, period.

By: Diablo Scott

Diablo Scott — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:14:49 +0000

1. Could be a disunited mess as Grolby suggests.

2. Could be pre-Tour mind games aimed at the other teams.

3. Could be that Armstrong, no longer content to have eclipsed Lemond's Tour victory record, now also wants to take from Lemond the glory of having the nastiest intrasquad backstabbing bitchslap title.

By: grolby

grolby — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:43:02 +0000

I'm also very suspicious about this "divided" Astana team. Lance came into the team, and the entire world was immediately chattering about whether he would actually ride for Contador. JB didn't even have to create this narrative, just cleverly stoke the flames, keep the story alive and build it to a fever pitch right before the Tour.

There's some possibility that this is all genuine and Astana will be a disunited mess when (if) it starts the Tour, but I would be very unsurprised if this turned out to be more mind games by Johan Bruyneel, shaking up and confusing the opposition. In fact, that's my bet, so far. It's hard to believe that someone as smart as JB would be so vulnerable to such an obvious threat to his chances of another victory. Everyone was talking about this and he didn't take sufficient steps to deal with it? I find that hard to believe.