Armstrong annoyed at Vaughters

Percy Vera

Vaughters said Astana were soft pedalling so as not to embarrass Armstrong - Armstrong not happy according to his Twit

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 017121.ece

Tusher

Quick! Run for the hills, JV, Armstong's after you!



Oh, he has been for years, well, um.............let's all wait and see who wins the fight in the bus park during Stage One of the Tour.

Jez mon

From Lance's twitter

I won't be forgetting this comment anytime soon. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 017121.ece #whatatool about 2 hours ago from UberTwitter

andyp

The truth often hurts.

micron

How sad that the figurehead of the sport has the vocab of a 14 year :roll:

Beatmaker

andyp wrote:

The truth often hurts.

:roll:
Whatever you think of Armstrong, Vaughters is talking b*llocks there.

frenchfighter

There is much to like and respect in Vaughters. Here is to a graet year for them including a top 5 for CVV in the Tour.

wicked

Have you read some of the comments below the times article? :roll:
These are the people that LA has attracted to the sport, and some say LA has done a lot for the sport of cycling.
Am liking JV more lately.

blazing_saddles

Hilarious comments.
Is Tyler Hamilton now living under the pseudonym Noel Richards? :P
Contador will be sending JV a thank you message, for getting the king of twitter off his back!

Jez mon

I think JV could have perhaps expressed himself better, just becaus upsetting Lance is generally a bad move. But if he's happy to do that, then all power to him! It's good to see people speaking their minds.

Bakunin

Who cares about Lance or Wiggins? Both of these guys placed well because the tour route was pretty tame.

Neither will be near the podium this time around.

JV is the man.

deal

Presumably the soft peddling comment refers to Astana not letting Contador ride away on climbs when he looked quite capable of doing just that.

£4m for Wiggins? i thought £2m was the figure people were mentioning ? Good bit of business by JV if true.

moray_gub

andyp wrote:

The truth often hurts.

So thats how to get on the podium then by soft pedalling at least BW and CVV now know what to do to make that step up.

moray_gub

micron wrote:

How sad that the figurehead of the sport has the vocab of a 14 year :roll:

A bit lame to be having a go at someone because of their vocabulary is it not ? :roll:

Kléber

Armstrong rises to the bait again. As he would say, "SSDD"

markwalker

Moray Gub wrote:

micron wrote:

How sad that the figurehead of the sport has the vocab of a 14 year :roll:

A bit lame to be having a go at someone because of their vocabulary is it not ? :roll:

+1 especially if you fail tofinish your phrase off.....

AndyRubio

heh heh a great example of trash talk from "Sideurns". I'm no fan of Vaughters - he's boring and the use of argyle and facial hair is annoying - but that's a great line about Astana.

andyp

Moray Gub wrote:

So thats how to get on the podium then by soft pedalling at least BW and CVV now know what to do to make that step up.

On the stage to Arcalis last year, Astana rode steadily because Armstrong didn't have the legs.

Put it this way, when was the last time Armstrong didn't try to assert his authority in the Tour on the first mountain top finish?

Moomaloid

yeah think he's talking bolleggs there...

Bakunin

You have to like Garmin and JV. Ruining Hincappie's sick belief last year that Yellow was an entitlement, kicking the old man lance today, and then questioning Wiggins' character.

While the facial hair and argyle are major drawbacks, you have to love the nerve.

If they only had landed Contador -- this summer would be great.

moray_gub

andyp wrote:

Moray Gub wrote:

So thats how to get on the podium then by soft pedalling at least BW and CVV now know what to do to make that step up.

On the stage to Arcalis last year, Astana rode steadily because Armstrong didn't have the legs.

Put it this way, when was the last time Armstrong didn't try to assert his authority in the Tour on the first mountain top finish?

So you know they rode steadily becuase Armstrong didnt have the legs ? yet he had the legs to finish that day with all the main GC guys Contador apart. Sometimes you guys crack me up you really do...........

FransJacques

you're not convincing me they didn't. like s mere mortalks the pros can go thru good and bad patches and it's entirely possible word in the peloton grape vine got back he was suffering against the best in the world. sounds possible

Then a quick phone confernce with Ferrari and all is fixed. :-) Just joking, that was a real prvocative comment.

DaveyL

Weeeell, in one of these recent Wiggo interviews he says everyone in the group was hurting on the climb to Arcalis, except Armstrong. He may just have had a better poker face though - who really knows?

SpaceJunk

Yep, I think JV is out of line here. But I still find it amusing that LA gets his knickers in a knot over it all.

This from a man who doesn't mind talking crap himself. Perhaps JV just giving one back for LA's comments about CVV coming 5th "was a bit of a joke" etc etc

To me it's just a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

pedro118118

I admire Armstrong's achievements, but why does he feel he's immune from any kind of criticism/comment. His ego is truly monstrous.

andyp

Moray Gub wrote:

So you know they rode steadily becuase Armstrong didnt have the legs ? yet he had the legs to finish that day with all the main GC guys Contador apart. Sometimes you guys crack me up you really do...........

It's a forum, people debate things.

How close was Armstrong to yellow at this stage in the race? If he'd been up to it then surely he'd have tried to get it to crown the comeback and put Contador on the back foot? That he didn't suggests that JV has a point about 'soft pedalling'.

Kléber

I don't know about Astana soft-pedalling as a whole but certainly on Ventoux we could have seen Contador take a flyer. He didn't and arguably this allowed Armstrong to keep the podium spot.

Poor Armstrong seems far too easily riled, as if he's constantly insecure.

pedro118118

Seemed to me that in the big mountain stages, Contador was very comfortable and riding within himself, except for his attacks at Andora, Verbier and en route to Grand Bornand.

He knew he could take time whenever/wherever he wanted and simply sat on. Armstrong, however, looked on the rivet when the heat came on and let's face it, had it not been for the wind-assisted split to Grand Motte and the TTT, he would've been well down the pecking order.

Does Armsrong really have it in him (at 38) to make significant improvements to both his climbing and TTing to challenge the other big contenders? I don't think so.

teagar

I don't think Armstrong's insecure.

Conflict is all that man knows, and it has been, combined with his talent, hugely rewarding for him. I watched that NOS hour long interview on him, and he defines his entire world into binaries.
He says "I don't know if he's a good guy or bad guy yet" and so on.

It's just his default reaction, and one that has served him well.

curium

@taylorphinney if you remember LA sneering at CvDV getting 4th in the TDF, then you remember who started this

Robert Black on twitter

Jon Vaughters explains comments about Wiggins, Astana and Armstrong http://bit.ly/apJNjZ

blazing_saddles

Here's a quote from elsewhere to mull over:

A very good observation from Vaughters. Suprisingly almost no one had noticed that Astana's strategy despite their great strength was very different from that of US Postal/Discovery.

Andorra Arcalis was the best example. In the old days there would've been a train, and riders like Heras, Rubiera, Azevedo exhausting themselves completely and quickly reducing the group to Armstrong and at best a couple of other guys (BTW, there was never even a question of riders other than Armstorng from Postal/Discovery riding for themselves in the GC despite their good position and chances (like Heras and Azevedo - it shows well the absurdity and hypocrisy in using "team" rhetoric against Contador in 2009 ).

On Andorra the tempo was merely solid, the group still large. The goal was completely different - not to split the field, but to preserve the time differences from the earlier stages. This strategy was 100% pro-Lance, and 100% against Contador. Contador would have benefited from the leadout in the old USPostal style, but it was very inconvenient for him to attack, when the Astana train was pretty much intact. On the other hand Lance was securing in this way his gains from the "split" stage and from TTT.

Actually, I'm not sure Arcalis is what Vaughters is on about.
They may have been setting a tempo to suit Armstrong the elder, rather than Contador, but they still succeeded in "soft pedalling" a number of contenders, out of the back.
Obviously, I do agree that the tactic would have been that of the old USPS/Disco were Armstrong 30, not approaching 38.

Rather, I tend to think that JV was talking about such days, like the one that followed, over the Tourmalet.
That was certainly on the pedestrian side, with an unchallenged Astana, trundling along at the front. Sure "soft pedalling" to rest old legs.

However, the fact that they were able to take time off, was due to an awful route, that positively discouraged attacking riding.