Lance Armstrong remained in 3rd place at the Tour of Luxembourg after Frank Schleck of Saxo Bank won the most difficult stage of the race on Friday and took the overall lead.
The five-day race around the tiny country ends Sunday. Armstrong will take a week off, then compete in the Tour of Switzerland from June 12 – 20 as he tries to ride himself back into shape for the 2010 Tour de France in July.
Armstrong, 38, will sit out the Dauphine Libere bike race that starts Sunday and runs through June 13. While considered a tune-up for the Tour de France, so is the Swiss bike race that starts a week later.
Tour of Lux
The Luxembourg bike race started on Wednesday with a 1-1/2-mile prologue won by Jimmy Engoulvent of Team Saur SojaSun. Armstrong finished in 5th place, 10 seconds behind the winner.
On Thursday, Armstrong rose to 3rd overall, just 1 second behind overall leader Cyril Lemoine of France, riding for Saur-Sojasun. Team RadioShack chased down a breakaway in that stage, and Armstrong teammate George Rast took second overall.
After Thursday's stage, Armstrong told the Associated Press:
“I can't lie, there were some guys sitting up on the final little climb there, (3 miles) from the finish and other guys riding off the front, attacking, and I made it across there relatively easily, which is a good sign. It's been a very long time since I've been able to do that.”
Friday stage
Schleck won Friday's 126-mile mountainous stage in a breakaway with Matteo Carrara of Vacansoleil. Armstrong finishing 6th in the first chase group, remained in 3rd place overall but dropped to 10 seconds behind the overall leader. Full reports are at CyclingNews.com.
Commenting at his Twitter website afterwards, Armstrong wrote:
“Hot, hilly, and hard circuits at the end. Legs coming around. Frank and Carrara were strong – congrats 2 them.”
Lemond
Armstrong crashed out of his last race, the 2010 Tour of California, on May 20 with injuries to his elbow and stitches around his eye. That was also the day that disgraced 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis admitted to doping in that race and accused Armstrong of doing the same during his career. Armstrong, as he's done countless times, denied those charges.
Three-time Tour de France winner Greg Lemond told USA Today this week that he felt vindicated by Landis's disclosures. (The US Anti-Doping Agency is investigating those Landis claims for validity.)
He told columnist Sal Ruibal about the 2001 phone conversation between himself and Armstrong that's been previously explored in the book “LA Confidential.” According to the book, Armstrong tells Lemond: “Come on, everyone's done EPO.”
Lemond has testified about that conversation, and Armstrong denied those charges when they first arose.
Lemond said that he feels the the entire system is corrupt:
“… But to really change, there needs to be a cleansing from the top down. Just punishing riders won't fix it. The teams, the corporations that sponsor them and the organizations that govern the sport all have to take responsibility. Right now it is a corrupt system.”
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