Oh you Armstrong haters must really hate this!

It looks increasingly likely that Astana will become Trek Livestrong which means seeing Armstrong in all grand tours be that as rider, director or owner until he dies!!!!

ROFL I do like the banter in this forum but this is really making me chuckle!

Have a nice day.

That could be great, we could speak for years of his 6 EPO samples!

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6 +2 (according Ashenden) samples with EPO should have banned Lance Armstrong to start next TDF !

Oh my.

I would feel like a class-A D-bag if I had my name plastered all over a Protour team.

What do the French have to say to this?

Kimmage was right, the cancer is back.

oddly enough, plectrum, you neglect to mention that lance was unable to secure funding a few years back when discovery lost its primary rider to retirement. how long will this team's funding last when he decides to retire again?

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"Kick over the statues and the tyrants die. Wave bye bye to their heroes with a hammer."
--The Redskins, Kick Over the Statues

Very good point!

Wouldn't any Livestrong money spent on sponsoring a cycling team be money taken from a kid with cancer? Then again, Livestrong has never really been Lance's priority, so maybe it wouldn't be such a surprise to see him draining the fund for his own purposes.

Have a nice day.

Well Livestrong already has a low ratio of income:charitable spending, ie they already spend a higher proportion on administration and promotion than most charities do. They would argue that this is justified in terms of the total amount brought in and therefore the total amount that can be spent. A few €M's on part-sponsoring a pro team is just a bit more of the promotional budget.

It's a pure ego-trip anyway. Why have your own charity when there are millions of charities out there already? If you really want to raise awareness of cancer charities why wouldn't you wear a McMillan cap or a Marie Curie cap or whatever? Or do what FC Barcelona did in collaboration with Unicef? Once you have a charity set up purely for the benefit of your ego, obviously the logical step is that you can use its 'promotional budget' to fund a pro cycling team to swan around Europe.

Livestrong wasn't around
Contador wasn't top dog (and not expected to feature at le Tour, let alone win)
Leipheimer wasn't very good

3 big differences between now and then.

Also back then success for the team was based around Lance winning but now it is just about Lance appearing in a fashion we have Slipstream to thank for this new approach to promotion and marketing within cycling.

Trek must be absolutely dancing with joy at the moment they have Lance plugging them with bike pictures nearly every day to 804,000 followers.

Also back at the tail-end to Discovery it really was uncertain that they would win the GC. I also think that because they won le Tour via a DSQ of Rasmussen that didn't go down well with Discovery. I know supposedly the funding had been pulled prior and regardless but if the blue train had smashed le Tour with glowing reports etc etc then many things could have changed post Tour.

Now if they do not clean sweep the 3 x GC I will eat my hat.

then what were those little yellow rubber bands all about?

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"Kick over the statues and the tyrants die. Wave bye bye to their heroes with a hammer."
--The Redskins, Kick Over the Statues

trek makes its living selling bicycles to americans who don't know better. when armstrong "retires" to his greatly reduced riding schedule as he has promised, how many bicycles will trek sell when the american no longer rides to promote the brand? this is the same question trek had to ask themselves a few years back and they didn't get on board with lance's dream then. unless of course, you admit the possibility that lance wasn't very serious a few years back in founding a team and was more interested in getting thrown out of austin nightclubs and nuzzling matthew m.

"Now if they do not clean sweep the 3 x GC I will eat my hat."

by the bye, what race are you betting this action on? the giro?

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"Kick over the statues and the tyrants die. Wave bye bye to their heroes with a hammer."
--The Redskins, Kick Over the Statues

Yeah, quite an amazing turnaround as soon as Levi started riding for Johan, wasn't it? Can't remember the last time a guy in his mid-30s suddenly emerged as a legitimate GC contender. Oh, sorry, I meant to say I can't remember the last time a rider in his mid-30s suddenly emerged as a legitimate GC contender who wasn't doping or riding for Bruyneel's team, although that last bit is kind of redundant, really, considering that there probably never has been a clean rider on a Bruyneel team.

"Livestrong"... the Lance Armstrong Foundation was founded in 97 and the yellow braclets came out around 2004ish.

As for Contador, when you start a promising pro career and the following year you mysteriously go into convulsions mid stage and are diagnosed with cerebral cavernoma. He has a scar that runs across the top of his head from ear to ear... The guy only had his skull opened up and a risky operation performed... Just minor details. He won the Setmana Catalana, finshed third in the Vuelta al País Vasco (won the time trial stage) and took fourth in the Tour de Romandie and won a stage there too - not bad for less than 12 months after having your brain hacked open I'd say.

Levi. I guess 3rd overall in the Vuelta (2001), a win in the Tour of Germany and 5th in the Tour (2005) and a win in the Dauphine Libere (2006) just shows that he was just rubbish. Personally, I'd say that the Dauphine win is his biggest win of his career and that was pre-Disco/Astana.

Try harder next time. Maybe even include some factual information, not that this place sees much of that... your comments further cement my belief that this place really is full of gossiping old ladies spouting rubbish over the neighbors fence...

As a charitable foundation I don't think Livestrong is allowed by the law to run a business.

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It never gets easier, you just go faster
Oton ATK Sandisk Mp3-soittimet ja Koss kuulokkeet

I can see why a Trek/Livestrong team with LA in some role (DS? owner?) would attract sponsors as opposed to the Discovery team w/o Lance in any prominent role. For a sponsor it's about visibility and media presence. LA trumps most everyone in that respect (which is a polite way of saying that he's a media whore).

Moreover, and I hate to say it, but it is true that Lance's presence in the sport might lead to better coverage in the US media. Maybe we'll see a channel which will pick up the Giro, Tour de France, Vuelta, some minor tours and the classics.

I'm actually somewhat surprised that the Giro wasn't picked up by Versus once it became clear Lance would ride it. So, maybe I'm too optimistic.