Amen Beebsy. I hope Contador can get onto a strong squad as I can foresee LA building a decent team at radioshack and using them to build a big lead in the team time trial and coat-tailing everyone around the mountains next year.

Just listened to the final ITV Tour de France podcast. According to Ned, LA couldn't bring himself to talk about Contador when asked to comment on his 2nd Tour win........... 

 Interviewer: What do think about what Contador has achieved?

 LA: Do you know? I don't want to talk about that man.

 

Contador has now slagged off Armstrong during a press conference in Madrid. "My relationship with Lance Armstrong is zero.. He is a great rider but it is another thing on a personal level, where I have never had great admiration for him and I never will."

Armstrong's reply via Twitter "Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I'd drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn't win."

Sad really. The war of words between the seven-times winner and two-times (one by default) winner hots up.

Stop this drivel? it was Armstrong who started all this with his daily sniping and criticisms. What a ghastly bloke.

I wasn't aware of his daily sniping and criticisms as much as I had read via the mainstream press during the tour. And who knows what went on in the hotel, other than Armstrong, Contador and members of Astana. Even his twitter blog wasn't critical of Contador, other than the attack that saw Kloden being dropped. What exactly did he say to place him as a "ghastly bloke"?

My Danish faince has always had a negative opinion of LA for a few years now.

As the Danes are serious about their cycling and get to see it quite easily on regular TV, so the  personalities are much well known and discussed.

Whereas, i have been disagreeing with her, saying she is wrong, he is a great bloke, legend, an inspiration.

But I really saw or heard much from the man, as i havent had TV other than terrestial and struggled to find coverage or find time when i did.

For the first year this year, Ive had easy access thru the iplayer, and my working/personal life now affords me good time to watch...

.....and i now have to say, having watched all the LA interviews, that my fiance was right after all.

Brilliant cyclist, ahtletic role model, even this year, but not a very nice man.                                              His constant forked tongue regarding AC has been there for all to see....he has goaded him for 3 weeks.

One can only respect AC for not rising to it and let his legs do the talking.

You have to give AC credence for remaining professional and focussed throughout the tour and waiting until it was finished for making comment about LA's behaviour.

Considering the amount of provocation, his late reaction shows great restraint really - pity you cant say the same for LA - his behaviour and arrogance has detracted from my many years of ardent respect for the man.

I'd still love to be directed to some these quotes from Armstrong directed as Contador as I haven't read and can't find anything to demonstrate arrogance, other than the kind of comments about the tour in general you expect from a man who once won seven tours, returned and was unable to boss the peleton in the same way that he was once able to do.

Not many Americans posting on this forum, I take it. (I am.) Once again, Cavendish finished 131st, nearly 3 1/2 hours behind Contador. A really great achievement. Hog the stages you know you can win and cruise through the rest at the rear. Oh well, he is a Brit. Wiggins deserves much more attention.

I think that's a little harsh, David. Cav's placement as a sprinter is not that unusual and he's a specialist who's not expected to really place all that well. Agreed that Wiggins had by far the more outstanding overall race but I would prefer not to get into nationalistic attacks.

Still, we're talking about Armstrong here... and once again I say that for all his achievements, he has not managed to present a dignified and sportsman-like demeanor. I think it would be far too easy to claim an Anti-American bias on this forum and I say that as an American citizen relocated to Ireland!

Not only has Armstrong not been able to hold back on the sniping - which is more than simply race mind games, and has been going on for more than a year now - he's also managed to drag the team as a whole into it. Liepheimer has been putting in his two cents and digs as Contador. The Astana team as a whole are fantastic but honestly, I did not see the entire team giving support to Contador, who - let's face it - won le Tour on his own merits, giving brilliant performances when it counts.

Surely all Armstrong is doing is slowly chipping away at the legacy of his own great achievements? Is this really how he wants to be remembered? As a once-great champion who blamed everyone else when he didn't get what he wanted?

 And while I'm at it... ;-) Shame on Bruyneel for allowing this situation to arise and for refusing to either deal with it or acknowledge it in public. Surely that's a big part of a manager's job and Astana are actually fairly lucky that there were not more stronger teams who could have taken advantage of this in-fighting.

 

So still no quotes given and Levi Leipheimer is now brought in. Again, I haven't seen any quotes from him that could be considered a jibe at Contador - other than the criticism over his tactics in the Kloden episode.

Following on from my Armstrong Twitter quote, this is what Leipheimer said after the end of the TdF. "Congratulations to Alberto, he's won the last 4 Grand Tours he's done!! Proud to be part of 3.5 of em. He's shown he's the strongest."

I don't read that as "Bu**er, Alberto won. Lance was better though. Proud to be part of his team in 2010, all of em including Bruyneel. He is the strongest".

I'm not going to get into this with you (which I'm thinking you will use as further lack of evidence). The entire cycling world is aware of the relationship or lack of between the two men. Even Bruyneel has talked of their "lack of compatibility".

Armstrong uses pauses, hard stares and grimaces as a battery of passive aggression against Contador. As I said before, he seems barely able to say his name. Contador has thanked the team. He has mentioned the support he got but he also said he had to fight for the race "on the road and in the hotel". Is he without blame in this - of course not - but incidents such as that with Kloden have been exagerrated. Contador himself said that he checked with Kloden before going and that he was very upset when Kloden got dropped. In the world of propaganda, Armstrong is a master player.

Look. No matter what I - or anyone else - says, I think you are probably going to disagree and the loyalty Armstrong commands in his fans is admirable but the fact is, the man just is not a team player. At least not unelss the team are all doing exactly as he wants. At least now he can get back to having a 1 on his jersey.

Well, that is your personal view and we will just have to agree to disagree. To quote yourself, the loyalty Contador commands in his fans is admirable.

well this is what he was talking about in the hotel. heres a translation from one of the spanish journalists;

"It happened on Thursday, a few hours before the Annecy ITT. Contador came downstairs to the entrance of the Palace of Menthon, the luxurious Astana hotel. The Tour was on. He looked right, then left. Nobody, nothing. No Astana cars or helpers. Cold sweat. Quick time check. Where are they? The hotel is several kilometers from the start. There he was, the leader of the Tour, in flip-flops, bag in hand and alone. He went to the hall looking for an answer: Armstrong had ordered the helpers to go pick up his wife, kids and friends to the airport. Contador left his room last because he was the last one starting the ITT. Armstrong had managed to take away his means of transportation. The straw that broke the camel's back. Hot flashes, he was rabid. He called his brother Fran. He came to pick him up by car and took him to Annecy in a private vehicle. He left last and finished first. His best victory. In the ITT. In solitude. The same way he
has won his second tour.

Contador's toughest climb was not recorded in images. It was narrated by others. It was fought in the hotel and the bus: during one stage, Armstrong sat his guests at the very back of the bus, right in Contador's usual seat. One more provocation. Armstrong to the luxury suite. Contador to sleep with Paulinho, the only ally. Same deal during the entire tour. Mouth shut, listening to Armstrong's jabs: it doesn't take a Nobel prize to figure out what happens with side wind. Contador didn't reply in the hotel. He did on the road. He attacked in the first mountain finish in Arcalis. Without permission from Bruyneel, Armstrong's DS. That night the Astana hotel was a funeral. Red eyes from the Texan (anger? crying? not sure). The first cyclist that stood up to him. And he did it in silence."

vccv:

well this is what he was talking about in the hotel. heres a translation from one of the spanish journalists;

"It happened on Thursday, a few hours before the Annecy ITT. Contador came downstairs to the entrance of the Palace of Menthon, the luxurious Astana hotel. The Tour was on. He looked right, then left. Nobody, nothing. No Astana cars or helpers. Cold sweat. Quick time check. Where are they? The hotel is several kilometers from the start. There he was, the leader of the Tour, in flip-flops, bag in hand and alone. He went to the hall looking for an answer: Armstrong had ordered the helpers to go pick up his wife, kids and friends to the airport. Contador left his room last because he was the last one starting the ITT. Armstrong had managed to take away his means of transportation. The straw that broke the camel's back. Hot flashes, he was rabid. He called his brother Fran. He came to pick him up by car and took him to Annecy in a private vehicle. He left last and finished first. His best victory. In the ITT. In solitude. The same way he
has won his second tour.

 

I have also heard that story, vccv, and from an impeccable source.

The same source (impeccable) has sent me this:

There’s another story circulating about Contador being left to his own devices by Astana, i.e. by Bruyneel and Armstrong. At the top of one of the mountain stages,  the Astana cars went off without him although taking one of the other riders in them. So he had to make his own way to the hotel.

 

Doing this (getting to hotel on bike) isn’t that unusual for domestiques, but usually top riders can get in a team car. One of those relating what happened and what he saw was Tom Boonen, who said he felt sorry for Contador and how he was being treated.

Since Tom Boonen abandoned on stage 15, Verbier, the previous mountain top finish was in the Pyrennees, Arcalis, stage 7. Therefore Contador had to endure this appalling treatment and favouritism towards Armstrong from week one onwards. 

It sickens me, to be honest, and makes me think even more highly of Contador.

 

Wow.. if that bit about being stranded in the hotel is true, then fair play to AC for keeping his gob shut until after the tour. What a pro!

Never been what you'd call a Lance fan but always had respect and admiration for him as an awesome cyclist. Lost most of that this tour. As has been mentioned before, it wasn't so much what LA said over the 3 weeks as what he didn't say.. and his body language.

Quite pathetic really.

Hopefully Alberto will thrash him again next year on different teams.