Subject: RE: LA beats CL by 15 seconds... I thought he had a good chance. The only unkowns were the Schleck brothers. And since everyone was looking out for Andy's position and chance to beat AC, then Frank sacrificed his Tour for him. Frank could have beaten LA if he hadn't ridden for his brother. Evans, Basso, VDV et al. were off their form or injured. Wiggo was in an unknown realm as a team leader and still has some experience he needs to gain before he can be a superstar in a grand tour. No one else was going to challenge for the podium. Astana easily had the strongest team last year (as an Armstrong/Bruyneel based team usually does ) and the field was not really that deep with superstars. So yes, I did think he had a shot if things went his way. Not to win, but a podium shot. But again, in the moments that really mattered, his age showed up big time. He was not "fast" up any hills and his TT'ing was well below his usual standard. Some of that was him carrying all that extra crap weight from his upper body work he had been doing, but he has smartly ditched the weights since he really got back into training and is getting back down to his old race weight and position. Bottom line to me? You can beat a lackluster field but you can't beat mother nature ...... |