Giro to welcome Astana?

micron

apologies, pete, was so busy pissing myself laughing replied to the wrong post - had meant a general reply to fscyclist and his claims.

Contador has potential but the fact his brain exploded when he was 20 makes you wonder - coupled with the fact he seems unable to break the ONCE-Liberty-Astana chain there are big question marks. As for the Tour he won, he wouldn't have made the top step of the podium if Rasmussen had stayed in the race - the Chicken had the beating of him every time the road went upwards and it frankly amazes me how everyone lauds Contador and there's never a word about Rasmussen's incendiary riding in that race. As for the laughable suggestion that Contadope would have taken too much time out of uberdoperJan in the climbs and then held him easily in the time trials - and been clean doing it - made me spit coffee all over my keyboard.

lucybears

il n’est pas exclu que Contador participe à la grande boucle dans les rangs de l’équipe CAISSE D’EPARGNE.
http://www.velo-club.net/article?sid=44196

Powerful Pete

No worries, I figured it was something like that!

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Powerful Pete

That is an interesting tidbit. Contador swears eternal loyalty to Astana. But he may ride the Tour for Caisse d'Epargne. But the director of Caisse d'Epargne says he has not approached Contador and Astana will have to come to him and 'offer' to let Contador ride with them. Oh, and he loves the biological passport idea.

Hhhhmmmm...

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RdBiker

That would be quite a team...think Valverde riding a support role to Contador (...and having a better Tour than last year). Would Valverde accept the status of a domestic is a totally different question though.

But anyways, is it possible to "loan" riders in cycling? I know our ice-hockey teams do it in the spring: some teams that are sure to not reach the play-offs loan their top players to the teams that are going to make it to the play-offs. But I've never heard if they can do a similiar thing in cycling.

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micron

There was talk of Pantani doing it some years ago which came to nothing.

I can't take any more of this - Contador and Valverde together? The OP twins? My keyboard is now swimming in coffee...

thecyclist

The OP triplets. Luis León Sánchez is also on CdE.

TheDarkLord

I'd say he is full of it. Didn't he offer his DNA for clearing his name with regards to OP? Now that the offer has been made by the Spanish authorities, has he rushed to clear his name? Dude probably does not even know how many lies he has told in the past.

TheDarkLord

I say, let's put all the OP multiplets in a single team. Easier for the race organizers to keep them all out by not inviting that team.

hawkeye87

At some point Valverde is going to have to admit to himself that he cannot win the tour. Aside from it being his bad luck race with crashing out, his performance last year was pretty poor. Of course, he was probably off the juice given the thinly veiled threats by both Ann Gripper and the ASO to certain cyclists of which he was one.

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Powerful Pete

Sorry DarkLord, there is a misunderstanding, IIRC the French tidbit was referring to the directeur sportif of Caisse saying that he likes the biological passport... not Contador. As you correctly point out, I doubt he is pro a biological passport...

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TheDarkLord

Oh, ok. Thanks for the correction. Obviously, I didn't read the article in French.

Bro Deal

Caisse was off the gear at last year's TdF.

Valverde should be pissed if Contador were to join for the Tour.

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Crankyfeet

Caisse? or just Piti? Getting passed by Rasmussen in the first TT kinda tipped Valverde's hand. But I was not aware that Caisse had a team program for sure. They'd probably have all their riders involved in the OP cloud with Piti if that were the case, wouldn't they? Or was he involved with Fuentes only when he was with Kelme? I was just wondering if you had something on the team as a whole being clean last year, or whether it was just an observational opinion?

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