뉴욕타임즈에 랜스암스트롱 최근근황이 떴네요..

랜스암스트롱은 최근 Nevada city classic race에서 우승을 했다고 하고...

최근 몇번의 시합에 도전한 끝에 첫 우승이라 합니다. minor대회여서 좀 그렇긴 하지만...

암튼, 성적이 점점 향상되고 있지만 나이가 38세이고,  지난번  쇄골부상때문에 이번 투어 드 프랑스에서 8번째 우승을 하는 것은 스스로 어려울 것이라고 평하는군요. 소속팀만 해도 현재 랜스보다 더 우승가능성이 높은 선수가 있어 예전과 같은 팀라이딩도 어려울거라 하구요. 

 

 

 

After Lance Armstrong won the Nevada City Classic cycling race recently and rushed off without the trophy, race officials figured he would never have second thoughts about leaving it behind.

“The guy’s won the Tour de France seven times, so we were thinking, why would he ever want the trophy from our little race?” said Duane Strawser, who directs the 49-year-old event held in California. “But wouldn’t you know it, the phone rang.”

An Armstrong representative called and asked that the trophy be sent to his home in Texas. That was when the significance of it dawned on Strawser. “Of course, he would want the trophy,” Strawser said last week. “It’s evidence of his success since his comeback.”

In September, Armstrong emerged from three and a half years of retirement, announcing that he would try to win his eighth Tour de France, a race that begins Saturday in Monaco. Aside from the winner’s trophy for the Nevada City Classic — his first win since the 2005 Tour — little has gone as expected for Armstrong in the reprise of his career.

He broke his right collarbone in March, causing a major hiccup in his training. His team, Astana, has had financial problems and nearly lost its racing license. A protest he led at the Giro d’Italia over course conditions was met with harsh comments from fans and the race’s director, prompting Armstrong to stop talking to reporters for the final two weeks of the event.

The personalized antidoping program he said would be led by the prominent scientist Don Catlin — which was to be the most extensive in sports history — fizzled out before it started. And an incident with French drug testers who knocked on his door threatened his eligibility for the Tour de France, his signature event.

Although many Armstrong-watchers consider the philanthropic element of his comeback to be a success — a main thrust of his return was to raise awareness and funding for the battle against cancer — his competitive success is likely to be defined by his performance over the next three weeks.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m not going for the victory,” Armstrong said in a phone interview on Sunday from France, where he was scouting several of the Tour’s Alpine stages. “I will say, full disclaimer, that it’s not been as easy as I thought. I think it’s also fair to say that I’m not as confident in winning as I was in other years.”

The biggest obstacle before Armstrong, 37, may be his teammate and the race favorite, the 26-year-old Alberto Contador.

“The trick is trying to be a responsible teammate and co-leader and understand that Alberto could not just be stronger, but could be a lot stronger,” Armstrong said of Contador, who won the 2007 Tour as well as last year’s Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España.

Armstrong provided a few reasons, just in case Contador’s superiority turns out to be true. He said that his body had needed time to get back in the swing of serious cycling, and that his age and a midseason crash had slowed him.

Lately, though, his training performances have shown him to be as fit as he used to be, Armstrong said. Still, he is heading into this Tour with a different state of mind.

“I don’t feel the same sense of fear that I’ve felt before,” he said, referring to a fear of failure that fueled his drive to win. “Maybe that’s not ideal for me, but I’m comfortable with my record from before. I think I’ve proven my natural talents in 2009.”

To start the year, Armstrong raced in Australia’s Tour Down Under and finished 29th. Then he was seventh at the Tour of California, riding in support of his teammate Levi Leipheimer, who went on to win.

About five weeks after breaking his right collarbone, Armstrong competed in the Giro d’Italia, a grueling three-week race that began in Venice and ended in Rome. After starting slowly, he improved day by day to finish 12th.

Phil Liggett, the longtime cycling race announcer, said in a teleconference Monday that Armstrong proved by the end of the Giro that he was “probably one of the best riders in the race.”

Liggett added, “I think the riders are scared of Lance right now.”

David Millar, a friend of Armstrong’s who rides for the Garmin-Slipstream team, said Armstrong could intimidate his competition, no matter his age or fitness level.