Roll up, roll up, for The Great Neverending Armstrong/Contador Pointless Armchair "Experts" And Uninformed Opinionist Debate.

Introducing today's armchair experts right below this message-------

Contador is a fool for badmouthing Lance. It shows real lack of maturity but its no great surprise. Contador doesnt come across very bright and coming out with drivel like that at a press conference re-inforces this.

I hope Lance comes back 2010 and kicks his mouthy ass : )

Damn I fell right into your devious trap WeAreACC, why you .......

I happen to like both LA and AC - LA rode with great panache (remember how boring the Indurain wins were?) and AC looks like doing the same. Didn't particularly like it when AC came back, felt that AC was always gonna have problems if he stayed with Astana, but he won the race, and should show more grace.

Fact is, LA's a great rider, has done a great race, and deserves respect. AC is, right now, an even better rider, and looks destined to end up one of the greats. In that position, doesn't hurt to show a little respect for the old guy.

I disagree that Contador doesn't seem too bright, but the Spanish public is extremely anti-American in general and anti-Armstrong in particular. This despite the fact that, at least in the seven years I lived there, Indurain always spoke well of him.

The "Contador attacked Armstrong" narrative still confounds me. Didn't LA work with Columbia when they split the peloton?

Here's the BBC translation of the most important part of the Contador video:

"Well, my relationship with Lance is zero. My relationship with him is zero. I think that independently of what his character is, he's still a great champion. He's won seven Tours and played a big part in this one, too. But it's different to speak at a personal level. I have never really admired him that much, or will ever, but of course as a cyclist, he is a great champion."

Add in the bits about the hotel being the worst part, and it affecting the rest of the team and staff, and it's still really tame after the abuse he had to take.

A promise from Bruyneel at the Astana Camp in Tenerife: "If Lance is not the best, he will become the best teammate Alberto could ever have dreamed of," he said."

AC will be crushed, like the thankless pos he is, next year by the Lance Steamroller. He will learn how badly it sucks not to have the best team on the planet behind him!!!

How good will AC be when he's learnt what he's ment to have learnt.

Well tbh I think Contador has already learnt how to beat Lance. Perhaps Lance is hoping that he will "learn" to respect Lance, I wouldn't bother he's from Texas and everyone knows only two things come from texas.

Lance didn't even go to the team celebration the Saturday night before the final stage!! I mean come on, The Lance is acting like a jerk. There is no other way to put it.

My admiration for AC only went up after this tour. He showed he had real steel after months of being undermined by the LA/ Bruyneel faction.

Funny how those team orders always seemed to advantage LA. if AC had stuck to those magical orders throughout the tour he would never have got to have worn yellow.

Have to say, LA is great at politics though. Won the PR/ spin war by a mile. One example: If you really want to bite your tongue you just bite it, you don't say "I AM BITING MY TONGUE". LA manages to get credit for being soooo restrained, while at the same time getting his message out loud and clear about AC.

Put them both on MTBs and see who wins a century race.

None of this team crapola.

AC has shown he is not a good sportsman, shame as he rode well as an individual but he broke team orders and ruined a 1-2-3 situation by attacking his own team mate kloeden. AC seems a disruptive and selfish person, even in victory he feels the need to moan, just get on with it FFS and find a new team for next year.

When my girls behave like this I put them on the Naughty Step for 10 minutes to think about their behaviour.

AC is not a team player, who would want to be in a team with his ego? Now he's a TT expert, may he'll be taking Cavandish on in the sprints next season.

I'm a big fan of both riders but actually think Armstrong came out worse over this. Sure, he deserves respect as a brilliant cyclist but he did nothing to earn respect as a team mate. It's a bit ironic that LA tells AC 'there's no 'I' in team' but then doesn't even bother to turn up to the team dinner himself.

LA should never have joined Astana IMO, he has enough money, political power and influence to start his own team and being the leader of his own team is the only way he's ever going to have more Tour success.

In saying that I don't see Armstrong beating AC or Andy Scleck in a Grand Tour and bitching about Contador now just makes him look a bit like a sore loser. A real shame for such a great champion.

LA should have had his own team after his 7th win. Why he went off and opened a bike shop I don't know. Why did he bother to come back for, to prove what exactly?

He then would have avoided this silly confrontation.

Any truth to the rumour that Spanish riders make terrible teammates?

Wasn't the guy below clever.

Just out of pure speculation, I wonder if AC will still be making podium finishes in 11 years....

ZzzzzZzZzzzzZzzzzZZzzzzz!!!!

"A champion is also measured on how much he respects his teammates and opponents". Ha, LA has NO respect for other riders - look at his comments regarding Sastre and VDV after last years race, his demeanor on the podium and not turning up to his teams dinner!! Stones, glass houses??. Sure he beat Sastre this year but i think AC could have put more time on everyone in the mountains if he wanted to. AC should just shut up and let his legs do the talking for the next few years.

I thought some of you might be interested in this, a little fuel to the fire. Make of it what you will...

http://www.steephill.tv/2009/entries/contador-post-tdf-news-conference/

Thanks to everyone pointing out all these "facts" about AC. "He is tactically naive". Who told you that? Let me guess? Lance Armstrong? "He doesn't respect his teammates or appreciate the help they gave him?" Umm, that was LA again, wasn't it? "He is talking lots of drivel about me?" Hey wait a minute? That was also LA. So do you know anything about AC except for what Lance has told you. Oh, you saw him attack his teammate in the mountains... a teammate who was playing mindgames against him in the press after every stage. Oooooh, wow AC really is an asshole.

You do realise through this entire tour, AC never once said anything bad against LA, until he was asked about the relationship in one press conference in madrid. His response - The relationship is nil. LA is a great champ, had a great tour and played a big role, but as a person I have no respect for him and never will have. That's it. The honest truth, direct, honest and not some sarcastic, sanctimonious twitter post or passive aggressive Lance comment.

I know Armstrong admitted when he stared out racing he was rude and arrogant and showed litle respect to his peers, however AC should know better afterall he did win, but lacks dignity, thought there was something amiss about him, cant fault his riding ability though.

We make a lot of LA's recovery from cancer, but unbeknownst to most, AC also had to battle a life-threatening disease that nearly ended his career. In 2004, when he was just 21, he had an aneurism in his brain. He collapsed during a race and started having seizures, and then spent 10 days in a coma. Doctors performed a risky operation to clear the clot in his brain, and weren't sure if he would ever walk/talk/think again, never mind ride. Eight months after the surgery, he won the fifth stage of the 2005 Tour Down Under.

Much could also be made, therefore, of AC's impressive ability to rebound from adversity. But few people are aware that his career nearly came to an end in 2004 and how hard he had to fight in order to come back and become the champion that he is today – the reason being that AC does not attempt to build his name, reputation and career on a personal tragedy, unlike somebody else...

Also, LA's record of 7 consecutive wins of the TdF needs to be put into perspective, particularly in light of AC's incredible achievements at so young an age, which force even greater respect.

At age 26, AC has already won the last 4 Grand Tours (France x 2, Italy and Spain) that he consecutively entered, and he is still younger than LA was when he won his first TdF! He is also already one of only five riders in pro cycling history to win all three Grand Tours, and the youngest to have done so.

Unlike LA, AC does not specialise in a single event: he enters classics and various cycling events throughout the year, making him a much more rounded cyclist and earning him much more respect from his peers than LA.

LA's performance is the equivalent of a tennis player who would only enter clay court tournaments his entire life, by-passing every hard court and grass court event that is played during the last 8 months of each year, in order to increase his chances of a win on clay courts. To become a good tennis player on all surfaces requires far more physical and mental toughness than otherwise. So it is with cycling.

But the main difference between the two lies in the manner in which they have won: to win the TdF, LA employed every possible tactic at his disposal, even nasty ones. His dictatorship and gagging of team mates are infamous. AC, on the other hand, is a classy guy, well-liked on the tour, who respects his peers. He does not try to win at any cost, but he does win anyway.

One understands, therefore, AC's statement that he has no respect for LA at a personal level; and you can be sure that this feeling is shared by the great majority of professional cyclists who know LA for who he is: a rude, arrogant, egocentric, publicity-hungry, megalomaniac, and to some extent a fraud, despite his 7 wins of the TdF.

Bottom line: AC deserves nothing but respect from anybody, and LA should start to understand this lest he has no self-respect left.

LA took the "Godfather-option" in the last tour, "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer".

He knew he couldn't beat AC mano a mano, so he joined the same team where he could keep an eye on him, use psychological pressure and, with the help of Bruyneel, tried to rein AC in, and persuade him to race for Lance. None of which would've been possible if he'd been racing on his own team, a clear team-leader, and against AC (a more logical option as some commentators have noted above).

His strategy was to start as strong as possible, call in some favours and use the famous 'whoever's the stronger rider will be leader, and the other will ride in support' statement by Bruyneel as his justification for keeping AC on a short leash the rest of the race.

As a strategy it was probably his best option-LA is a great strategist-but AC didn't buy it-he knew he was the stronger rider and, in spite of a difficult situation inside his own team, he rode to win, and he won.

AC's gonna have his work cut out for him in 2010, 'cos LA will be back with a team of great riders, all working for him, and all with the objective of grinding down AC and putting him out of the race (as he did in this year's Leadville 100 against Dave Wiens).

Le Tour 2010 is shaping up to be a classic, with a great rivalry at it's heart. I can't wait.