Ha. How many times are we going to have to read from that script. Every Tour de France Lance’s team, or Lance himself, appear to be in trouble, appear to be struggling around the stage 8 to 12.

Lance struggling to keep up with Ulrich in 2001 is the prototype of this. You remember that ended the “the look” which was effectively the end of Jan’s tour hopes for that year.

This year Armstrong is saying, “We have to reevaluate.” Paolo Savoldelli says, “We were tired when we got to the base of the final climb.”

Maybe, maybe not. I’m not convinced. The Discovery team has proven before that they are better actors than they are bike riders. You would think that the cycling press would remember.

The amazing news for the day was that 4 of the top 6, and 6 of the top 14, riders were American: David Zabriskie (1), Lance Armstrong (2), George Hincapie (4), Floyd Landis (6), Bobby Julich (11), and Levi Leipheimer (14).

What do these 6 riders have in common besides being American?

They all have experience as part of the Tailwind Sports organization. Tailwind Sports is the management team behind the current Discovery Channel Cycling Team, and the previous US Postal Cycling Team. Tailwind Sports actually owns the team, the names that you read are the names of the sponsors.

I would be interested to know all of the details of the ins and outs of the relationship between Lance Armstrong and Tailwind sports. It seems to me that they have so many aspects of their personalities in common. In any case, Lance is certainly the central athlete of the organization. All of the highly placed American riders in today’s first stage of the Tour de France have ridden on teams owned by Tailwind Sports and captained by Lance Armstrong.

I would guess that all of these American riders were influenced by the successes of Greg Lemond in the Tour in late eighties and 1990. Greg moved cycling into the vision of America and all of these riders were teenagers when when Greg was winning his victories.

What Tailwind Sports has done is to gather up the energy that was generated by Greg’s wins and channel it into an extremely successful philosophy of how to build a cycling team for the grand tours. This is an accomplishment to be proud of.

The thing that I respect most about him is his incredible mental power and focus. Just looking at him, you can see the concentration and intensity of his mind. His preparation and attention to detail is obvious in every thing that he does and every thing that he says.

As a role model, the mental abilities are more accessible than his physical abilities. I don’t expect to ever have a VO₂ Max anywhere near Lance’s, but I do believe that I can approach his mental intensity through practice and training.

Even champions make mistakes.

The six-time Tour winner said he was stung by a bee, but continued to ride after the stinger was removed from above his left eye. The Texan admitted the sting “hurt like hell” and caused him to lose concentration.

A few minutes later, his wheel hit a raised spot in the road as he was turning, forcing his wheel to lock, flipping him over his handlebars. The crash split his helmet in two.

That so sounds like something I would do. Maybe I’m closer than I thought?