Cycling today

The big story today in the world of cycling once again involves the Astana Team.

And it isn't Alberto Contador or Levi Leipheimer.

While Leipheimer and Contador relinquished the lead of the 2008 Vuelta (by 11 seconds) to Egoi Martinez of Euskatel, which is not a negative because it gives Euskatel the burden of leading the peleton in chasing down breaks for the next three mostly-flat stages (and Martinez is no long-term threat), Astana was making headlines with Lance Armstrong.

Accordong to a rumor in VeloNews, Armstrong has agreed to return for five races next year, including the Tour de France. He is doing this for no salary or bonuses, and he will post all of his doping tests online.

To an extent, this appears to be an effort by Armstrong to show that he was clean during his Tour wins, which has been a subject of intense debate among the French, in particular. When former Armstrong teammates Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Manuel Beltran tested positive for doping after they left Johan Bruyneel's USPS/Discovery Channel team, a lot of aspersions were directed at Armstrong. This would be Armstrong's chance to show that he was clean all the time (or at least after 1999, which we'll discuss on another occasion) ... and now that Bruyneel runs Astana, Armstrong would have the best strategist in cycling on his side once again.

Since Astana will continue to have Contador and Leipheimer and probably Kloeden plus Armstrong, it should be able to be competitive in all three Grand Tours, which Bruyneel had already managed with USPS/Discovery Channel/Astana (winning 11 Grand Tours: 8 Tours, 2 Giros and 1 Vuelta (and counting)). The team has also added Dirk Demol, who was operations director of Discovery Channel when Bruyneel was director sportif there, for 2009 -- and the sponsorship from Astana has freed it from needing to bring young Americans up through the ranks of the team, since they have ended up on the U.S.-based teams Team Columbia or Team Garmin-Chipotle.

According to the VeloNews report, Armstrong's five races would be the Amgen Tour of California, which has become America's premier stage race, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia, the Dauphine-Libere and the Tour de France. In particular, this announcement (if confirmed) is viewed as a huge boon for the Tour de Georgia, which is without a title sponsor and may collapse without a huge boost like this.

Oh, and the Trek bicycle sponsorship followed Bruyneel, Contador and Leipheimer to Astana, so Armstrong won't have any conflict there.

More to come....