Merckx – “I think it will be a very open Tour”
With the 2010 road cycling season set to kick-off with the Tour Down Under this weekend, the Associated Press checked in with arguably the greatest cyclist of all-time, Eddy Merckx, at a presentation in Paris for next month's inaugural Tour of Oman, for his take on this summer's battle in France.
Although Merckx expects the main battle to be waged by former Astana teammates Lance Armstrong, who will line up for the first time this year with his new squad, Team RadioShack, this Sunday in Australia and Alberto Contador, the reigning Tour de France champion, he also cautions Armstrong to be wary of other rising stars.
"Contador has shown he is the most complete rider, when you see the way he won the Tour de France. He is much younger than Lance,'' Merckx said. "But there's not just him, there's other young wolves like the Schleck brothers ... I think it will be a very open Tour.''
While "skeptics argue that Armstrong's age is a barrier to success given that the Tour's oldest winner, the Belgian rider Firmin Lambot, was 36 when he triumphed in 1922 [Armstrong incidentally was 33 when he won his last, the 2005 edition], Merckx argues that Armstrong's 3 1/2-year retirement after winning his seventh straight Tour may have helped keep his body younger. While others trudged up the torturous climbs of the Alps and Pyrenees, Armstrong's body was spared that punishment during those doping-marred 2006-08 Tours."
"That also counts. We'll see, it's a challenge and hats off to what he is doing,'' Merckx said. "What wears you out is the competing, not the training.''
In the end, Merckx feels little can dim Armstrong's ambition to win an unprecedented 8th Tour. "He's doing it for himself,'' Merckx said.
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