2005 Tour de France T-Mobile: cycling's NY Yankees

Lance Armstrong and his team this year may not be as dominant as the previous 6 editions but what Lance is showing us today is how calculating he can be. This '05 team is probably the weakest team since 1999 considering that two of his domestiques this year has future yellow jersey written all over their resume.

With his team doing poorly the past two stages in the baking Pyrenees, he tactically let go of all of those riders who had no hope of winning the overall while keeping his closest rivals in check. Because of this, he has yet to win a single stage although he hopes to change that in this Saturday's 55km ITT. In the end, no one will remember if the 2005 tour champion won a stage or not. Greg Lemonds' tour win in 1990 didn't include a stage win but it did not lessen the value of the win.

Georeg Hincapie, LA's best friend since they were 17 years old won the most difficult stage 15 of this year's race because of this strategy. It is ironic since Hincapie started cycling as a sprinter before gravitating to the one day classics. The past two years, he improved his climbing skills and became an invaluable ally of LA in the mountains of the Tour. Hincapie, the only rider to ride with LA in LA's 6 tour wins, dropped certified mountain goats like Oscar Pereiro, Oscar Sevilla and Michael Boogerd on the way to the biggest win of this career.

Because of this, there are now talks that he can take over the leadership of team Discovery for the grand tours next year. I hope that George won't listen to that talk. A single mountain stage win does not make a tour winner, that's for sure. I think he should concentrate on the classics and hunt for stage wins in the tour.

In yesterday's stage 14, everybody was puzzled to see Jan Ullrich and Andreas Kloden close down an attack by their teammate Alexander Vinokourov. If there was to be a "boneheaded tactic" of the year award, it should be given in spades to T-mobiles director sportifs led by Walter Goodefroot. It is basic in cycling 101 lesson, never ever try to chase a teammate who's trying to break. If you do this, it's similar to blocking a fast-breaking teammate from behind! No matter what the justification of the director sportifs, it was just plain stupid, stupid and stupid! I don't know what the chasers (Ullrich and Kloden) heard on their earphones that made them chase Vino. Just pathetic. One of the reasons put up was the imminent transfer of Vino out of T-Mobile to Discovery Channel, LA's current team.

If I were T-Mobile, I'd fire all the cycling managers starting with Goodefroot today. In fact, they should have fired him years ago for putting up a mediocre team made up of highly paid misfits.

T-Mobile reminds me of the the NY Yankees.