Is Lance really trying to win this year or not?

musette

I doubt that Hincapie can do well enough on Ventoux to win the overall. DC is trying to win with LA or Popo, I believe. Whichever of those two does best on the ITT and Ventoux will get the team support.

LA has said Popo is the hopeful for DC on GC, and I believe that Popo is preferred because then LA can measure his effort more and not waste himself at the Dauphine. Popo going for it is also consistent with Ace not having done a particularly good Prologue, and the team wanting Popo to build confidence as the team's GC contender for next year's Tour and "the future". Even Savoldelli refers to Popo as the "future" of DC at the Tour, or in general.

musette

Getting back to the original question in this thread re: LA's intent to win the Tour, he continues to bluff by referring to possibilities re: Paolo and Popo.

""Seventh is more of a personal goal and ambition," said Armstrong. "That's not a record and it's not going to be written in any book. But it will mean a lot personally. "It will mean I've retired at the top of my game and that I might have won another one. It's a motivating factor to win another one, maybe convincingly and to retire." But the Texan is ready to spend his last Tour working for a Discovery Channel team mate if one turned out to be in a better position than he was [my translation: which they will never be, except as part of a strategy to cause LA to win the GC]. "I'm willing to share, yeah. You never know. If something happens in the first week and a group gets a 15-minute lead and (Yaroslav) Popovych is in there." [my translation: then, strategically Popo is still riding for me but we will pretend that I'm willing to let him win the tour] We've never been in that position before and I'm riding to win another Tour," he said."

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_yl...uters&type=lgns

However, it is evident LA is still going to be the GC contender at the Tour, however. He has iron discipline over his domestiques and nobody who doesn't kill themselves for him and who doesn't accept LA is the only GC contender will survive as a member of team DC. Also, LA has recruited so that eveybody is 100% loyal to him; neither Paolo nor Popo would ever even think about their own GC aspirations this year. That is how effective LA and Bruyneel are in recruiting the right domestiques.

MJtje

He will TT much better now.......it is june not april! And it will be a big test tomorrow.

Haha hincapie winning dauphine libere.....LOL! He's a good classics guy and can TT very well but he can't go with the best on a mountain. So or it is lance or popo who will shine.