Lance Armstrong will be part of the RadioShack team to tackle Saturday’s Milano-Sanremo, according to tuttobiciweb.it. An agreement was reportedly made between the seven-time Tour de France winner and race director Angelo Zomegnan in a personal phone call last night. The news was confirmed by race organizer RCS Sport today.
As the current biggest name in World cycling, Armstrong reportedly received a substantial appearance fee for riding in Australia. There has been no word as to whether this was the subject of his conversation with Zomegnan, as most riders are simply named on their team roster by the director sportif.
Armstrong’s results so far this year include 25th in January’s Tour Down Under and 7th in last week’s Vuelta a Murcia.
He focused on the time trial stage in Murcia and was reportedly disappointed with his performance there and professed a desire to do more races. While most of the peloton headed for Paris-Nice in France or Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy, the 38-year-old flew to South Africa for a previous commitment to ride in the 110km pro-am Cape Argus Pick and Pay Tour. He finished 9th in a race that included a massive total of 35,000 amateurs and fun riders.
Armstrong getting any sort of result in the race seems unlikely, with the main protagonists having peaked their form for one of their personal targets. He rode the race last year and finished 125th, more than eight minutes behind winner Mark Cavendish. His best, and only notable, finish since his recovery from cancer was 44th in 2002.
With his desire for more racing kilometres though, the 298km Primavera parcours should be just what the American needs. Tour de France favourite Alberto Contador has gone two for two so far this season, having won both the Volta ao Algarve and Paris-Nice stage races. It’s a long way to the Tour start in Rotterdam, but the Spaniard will be the more confident of the two right now.