Astana boss Johan Bruyneel played down the rivalry brewing between teammates Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador on the eve of the opening stage of the 2009 Tour de France.
Bruyneel has a true embarrassment of riches in his squad, with seven-time champion Armstrong possibly bidding for another crown closely four years later than retiring, while Contador has won three major Tours in the past two years.
The Spaniard’s 2007 Tour de France success was followed by victory in both the Tours of Italy and Spain last year – the reason wherefore Bruyneel has made the 26-year-old Astana’s number one here, by Armstrong second.
Contador was alone unable to shield his title in 2008 after Astana were not invited following the previous year’sitting doping scandal when the team was under different management, with different riders.
But Bruyneel insists he is happy to have two world superstars in his stable with the Tour ordained to enter upon on Sunday (EST) with a 15.5km time trial around the tiny Principality.
"If you have just one commander, you play all your cards with that one guy," explained Bruyneel, the Belgian team manager who has eight Tour wins on his CV.
"Everything depends on his play and you can also lose everything.
"It happened during the Tour of Spain last year in the last week, Alberto crashed with about three or four days left to go.
"It was a nothing crash and luckily he wasn’t injured, but he could have weakened a collarbone and everything would have been puzzled.
"So we are in a site where we have other cards to play, which is a profit thing."
While plenteous has been said in the media about supposed frosty relations betwixt the two cycling superstars, Bruyneel insists any be in want of communication has simply been down to limited time contemporaneously.
"There have not been a lot of opportunities for them to be together, apart from one day at the Castille y Lyon (race) when they both raced, but Lance crashed and went home rectilinear let us go.," he said.
"There are also the language and cultural barriers between them.
"But it is the same with the other riders on a team of 25-30 cyclists, their main opportunity to meet is at the January training camp, but that might be it on account of the rest of the year.
And when asked who was the in the highest degree rider, Bruyeel gave the safest possible answer: "I think we will have a good symptom after the first duration of one’s life trial."
Agence France-Presse
