On July 31, 2009 I wrote a post on this blog: Luxembourg, Tour de France, Armstrong, Andy Schleck and Radioshack. (1). In this post, I gave the following unsolicited advice: Join team Radioshack with Lance Armstrong for the 2010 season. You'll learn a lot from the science behind team Armstrong, and it will be good for your career.
What if?
Today I still believe that was good advice, though of course that didn't happen. But the "what if" question is appropriate, as Team Leopard Trek starts a new season. So what if Season 2010 had been a Radioshack association?
As things went, a weakening Armstrong, seeing that he couldn't win the Tour, would have pushed Andy Schleck into the leadership position, and he might have won the Tour in a clear manner. With a serious support team, his equipment would probably not have had a chain incident that cost him the Tour. He also would have gotten closer to the US sponsorship market, which obviously needs a reason to support a Luxembourg champion and that reason would have been the link to Armstrong. Let me guess: the Luxembourg sponsors are very few?
A lost year 2010.
What really happened was that the Schlecks spent a year with a dysfunctional Team Saxobank. Key managers left early in the season. Those who stayed spent their time on damage control, on altercations, and the director Bjarne Riis was already secretly managing Alberto Contador as he was scrambling to set up a 2011 team. Knowing that, he had more interest in a Contador victory while he was directing Schleck, in whose victory he was probably less interested. One has to be naive to assume that Riis was not managing his future interests, whereas his day to day job was about contentions.
Andy "stuck" to Riis' program to attack Contador only on the last kilometer in the crucial stage. It's hard to believe that this was a serious strategy, only in reverse. We know what happened: a mechanical malfunction aborted Andy's attack, and Contador, who had eaten a lot of beef as he said, seized the occasion and showed that if you are not a fair play guy, you can still win the Tour. He won it by exactly the amount of seconds that he took on Andy Schleck in that fatal stage. Ill gotten in more than one way.
Get upset, Nondikass!
Even after the Tour was over and Contador was struggling to explain a forbidden substance in his system, detected during anti-doping controls, Andy was not upset. Andy: this is a world level competition. Being a gentleman with your closest competitor stops at least at the moment when he violates the code of honor. As we now know, he seems to have violated the law too.
Leopard Trek
All the above is not relevant anymore, were it not to introduce the following: As everyone knows the new season got started with the Schlecks being at the center of Team Leopard Trek. Nice. No Bjarne anymore, but no Armstrong either. So far it has been a marketing success with a zest of Luxembourg patriotism and of mystery. The main sponsor, Luxembourg's Flavio Becca is mostly unknown.
A team of 29 has been assembled and counts a number of great champions. That's many primadonnas. There lie two dangers: first such a team becomes the team to beat, and everyone ends up running against them. The second danger is that the team will not work like a team but like a collection of just primadonnas, nice to show on a stage, but impossible to have them work together.
So I reiterate my unsolicited good advice to Andy Schleck: as I said, the Leopard Trek setup is fraught with dangers. You will be the man to beat because of the reputation out there. Reputation alone doesn't make a winner, it is being physically and mentally prepared (à la Lance Armstrong I would say). It is not the best reputation but being the fastest that will make you win. And remember, you are a naturally nice person. But call a cheat a cheat and an usurpation an usurpation. And all best wishes for this year's great adventures.
http://egidethein.blogspot.com/2009/07/luxembourg-tour-de-france-armstrong.html
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