Alexandre Vinokourov has had an incredible cycling career winning this years Liege Bastogne Liege, finishing 3rd overall in the Tour de France in 2003 as well as winning the Pair Nice tour that same year. Vinokourov now 31 years old is thinking about his future, specifically about the Tour de France saying “I have maybe still two or three years left in the peloton but during that time I will be basing everything on winning the Tour,” he said.
This year Alexandre has spent considerable time improving his climbing skills and it shows, dropping Armstrong on the hardest mountain stage of the Dauphine Libere race which is one of the final tune up races before the TDF. What makes this news just that more interesting is abounding rumors that Vinokourov will ride next year for Team Discovery, possibly replacing Armstrong as the team leader.
However with just days before this years Tour starts …. make no mistake. Team T-Mobile is totally focused on winning the Tour. It’s Armstrong’s final season and we will do everything we can to beat him.” This also leads to questions about just how loyal T-Mobile will be the their leader Yan Ullrich, their is no question that the T-Mobile is strong this year. However it is possible that Vinokourov will have his own motivations this year for a podium finish that could get in the way of helping Ullrich secure a win.
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