It didn't feel right not riding today on a perfectly nice Sunday. I almost went over to the Columbia ride but, uncommonly, my common sense kicked in and I stayed off the bike. Even if I had gone over just to ride at my own easy pace, the testosterone would have kicked in and I would have ridden further and harder than I should have. The leg feels a little better today.
News Item of the Day: Alexander Vinokourov, one of Lance Armstrong's main rivals in next month's Tour de France, is reportedly being courted as the next Discovery Channel leader next season. The 31-year old Kazakh, whose contract with T-Mobile expires at the end of the season, would replace the retiring American.
According to French newspaper Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui, Vinokourov ranks high on a shortlist of potential successors. The paper adds that with three weeks to go to Armstrong's bid to win an unprecedented seventh Tour, the team would neither confirm nor deny the news. "There exists a list of riders, but we can't tell you if Vino is on it or not," Armstrong's agent Bill Stapleton told the paper. "Ask Johan," quipped a coy Armstrong sending the newspaper's reporter to see team manager Johan Bruyneel who in Sphinx-like fashion replied "every great rider at the end of his contract interests us." Stapleton, Armstrong, and Bruyneel each control one-third of the team's capital.
Vinokourov himself neither confirms nor denies the approach: "It's hard to say," the recent winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège told Le Parisien. "It's true that I'm at the end of my contract with T-Mobile but for the moment, I'm not committed. Come what may, I'm going to wait to see the results of the Tour to make a decision."
Last year, the two-time Paris-Nice winner missed the Tour through injury and his alliance with Armstrong's eternal nemesis Jan Ullrich is hands-down the biggest threat to Discovery Channel's bid for seven. Conscious of the stir transfer speculation of this magnitutde could cause so close to the start of the Grande Boucle, the paper wonders aloud why no one has simply issued a flat denial.
News Item of the Day: Alexander Vinokourov, one of Lance Armstrong's main rivals in next month's Tour de France, is reportedly being courted as the next Discovery Channel leader next season. The 31-year old Kazakh, whose contract with T-Mobile expires at the end of the season, would replace the retiring American.
According to French newspaper Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui, Vinokourov ranks high on a shortlist of potential successors. The paper adds that with three weeks to go to Armstrong's bid to win an unprecedented seventh Tour, the team would neither confirm nor deny the news. "There exists a list of riders, but we can't tell you if Vino is on it or not," Armstrong's agent Bill Stapleton told the paper. "Ask Johan," quipped a coy Armstrong sending the newspaper's reporter to see team manager Johan Bruyneel who in Sphinx-like fashion replied "every great rider at the end of his contract interests us." Stapleton, Armstrong, and Bruyneel each control one-third of the team's capital.
Vinokourov himself neither confirms nor denies the approach: "It's hard to say," the recent winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège told Le Parisien. "It's true that I'm at the end of my contract with T-Mobile but for the moment, I'm not committed. Come what may, I'm going to wait to see the results of the Tour to make a decision."
Last year, the two-time Paris-Nice winner missed the Tour through injury and his alliance with Armstrong's eternal nemesis Jan Ullrich is hands-down the biggest threat to Discovery Channel's bid for seven. Conscious of the stir transfer speculation of this magnitutde could cause so close to the start of the Grande Boucle, the paper wonders aloud why no one has simply issued a flat denial.
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