Lance Armstrong will ride Tour of Italy, Tour de France in 2009; Can he be a team player?

And so now it’s official. Lance Armstrong, at age 37, said Monday he will compete in 2009 in the Tour of Italy and Tour de France — a career first.

And despite of all of his successes, participation in two grand tours and the series of European Classics and shorter stage races in which Armstrong also plans to ride may quiet his critics.

(Through the years, many cycling insiders have labeled Armstrong as an incomplete rider who only focused on the Tour de France. But critics always find something, and I never gave credence to those who chastised Armstrong for gearing his itinerary to the sport’s biggest race. Why shouldn’t he?)

Word of Armstrong’s decision to compete in the Tour of Italy and Tour de France surfaced last week on Twitter.com, the internet’s version of sending text messages.

Suffice is to say, Armstrong likes to “Twitter.” And about 7,000 people have signed up to follow what he says.

Armstrong also recently learned how to send images on Twitter and did so by posting a picture of himself and Ryszard, his soigneur, while the two were doing some winter training sessions at Cote de Saint-Roch in France.

One of Armstrong’s Twitter followers posted a question to Armstrong about the snow in France and asked Armstrong about his plans to Twitter during his 2009 season.

Armstrong responded in part: “And yes, I will twitter from the Tour, the Giro, the ToC (Tour of California), and the TdU (Tour Down Under). Hell, I seem to be twittering a lot."

I don’t think Armstrong’s decision to compete in the Tour of Italy and Tour de France has much to do with silencing critics. In fact, two other areas of his pending double grand tour participation are more interesting:

How will he perform in the Tour de France after what will likely be a harder route in the Giro d'Italia? And of particular interest to me is whether Armstrong can compete as a domestique?

During his recent interview sessions around the globe, one of the most interesting was a column written George Vescey, the esteemed correspondent of the New York Times.

Vescey asked Armstrong if he could ride as a domestique? Armstrong, according to the columnist, paused at length, and said, “I don’t know, I’ve never done it.”

Correspondingly, until George Hincapie’s stage win in the 2005 Tour de France, an Armstrong teammate had never won a Tour de France stage.

That said, here’s a logical scenario that could have already been discussed, if not agreed upon, by Team Astana and its power players, Johan Bruyneel, Alberto Contador and Armstrong.

Armstrong rides for the victory in the Tour of Italy and gets the glory of claiming the race’s 100th edition. He gets a huge amount of publicity and plenty of exposure and financial reward for his cancer foundation.

Five weeks later, Contador gets to ride in the lead role in the Tour de France. Armstrong gets a stage win or two and supports the Spanish 2007 Tour de France winner through the route’s toughest climbs. Contador gets to defend his title after a year’s absence. Astana gets its retaliation to Tour de France organizers who excluded the team this year.

And Armstrong, pressure gone after his Tour of Italy title, opens a new chapter of his legacy. He rides in a support role. Once the consummate leader with absolute power, Armstrong rides the Tour de France as an elder statesman, extraordinarily skilled but content to let a teammate have the ultimate spotlight.

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