The rumor was a rumor!
The rumor we heard has already been denied: Andy Schleck won’t be in a Lance Armstrong led Radioshack team in 2010, but continue with his brother Frank Schleck in their affiliation with Saxobank.
As a consequence, Tour de France 2010 has already three main contenders: Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck and Lance Armstrong, actually the podium of Tour de France 2009. Andy Schleck being the youngest of the three seems to have the greatest potential for improvement, mostly in the time trials. And his age makes him a real candidate for the yellow jersey in Paris in 2010.
This is a good reason enough for him not to tie himself in with another ambitious leader of another team, Lance Armstrong.
A second look.
However, let’s have a look at what would have been or could have been, if Andy Schleck would have signed up with Lance Armstrong and Radioshack. It is not a futile exercise, but rather part of a necessary due diligence about a career move. A professional cyclist’s retirement age comes early. Many never have revenues that rise to the level of minimum wages. There might be 500,000 to 1,000,000 people on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. But no one pays a dime, contrary to what fans would have to shell out in any other type of sport. So our heroes are paid for their very hard work by their sponsors, or from winning prizes and from endorsements. A successful champion can have a lucrative second job as an official endorser. How lucrative that is, depends on the market, in which people identify with him. For Andy Schleck, that’s 500,000 people in Luxembourg. For Lance Armstrong, that’s 300,000,000 Americans or 600 times Luxembourg. This brings me to the interesting point of what if.
Yes, what if?
What if we had had an Armstrong-Schleck association within a Radioshack team? Andy Schleck would have had to scale back his ambition to win the Tour for another year: Lance wants to win an 8th Tour. But Andy Schleck would have learned from a great master. A man who won so many competitions, who overcame immense adversity, who has proven his courage, who demonstrates an unfailing discipline, who almost scientifically has dissected all aspects of cycling from aerodynamics to equipment and nutrition, who operates according to his plan, and in my mind who exerts some kind of mental dominance by just showing up. Though this looks like blind fiery fan talk, I believe this is a cold assessment of what that man is. He won seven Tours!
Even associated with Lance Armstrong, Andy Schleck had still a chance to win the tour in 2010. Indeed it is a long way to Paris. If not, with a mentor like Lance Armstrong, Andy Schleck would have been the top contender in 2011 and many years thereafter. So we are talking about fame delayed for one year, because of a self-imposed hiatus to learn from the master and help him achieve his 2010 goal.
There lies the interest for such an association for Andy Schleck. His association with Lance Armstrong drags him from a small regional European market for endorsements into the arms of a continental market. His association with Armstrong would have created that missing link to the American public, which is very ready and open to consider someone who spreads good vibes as one of their own. And as a daily viewer of the Tour on the US channel Versus, I witnessed the sympathetic comments that the Schleck brothers earned there on a daily basis. The US market for endorsements is already half open!
Next steps, if I may!
In these days of beer diplomacy, why wouldn’t you, the Schleck brothers, and Lance come by and have a beer with me, and we’ll sort it out.
And now, I have to say it, I can’t hold it back anymore: Radioschleck!
Robert A. Mandell
