7 time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will bid for an 8th title as a member of Team Astana it was announced Wednesday in New York. Speculation had been rife that he would not ride for what is basically his old team as its current captain, Alberto Contador, could win the Tour anyway.  Contador had initially said that he would love to race with Armstrong but later statements were noticably cooler on the idea.  He even suggested that he might try to find another home where he would be team captain.  Others in the team must be a tad upset too, not least of which Levi Leipheimer has had a great season and could have won the Vuelta had team orders prevented him from attacking his team mate.

Armstrong has responded to some of the questions fielded at him concerning this.  He told the press conference today that-

“I think there is room for all of us on that team: myself, Alberto, Levi and Johan Bruyneel, who is quite the personality himself, Alberto is the best rider on the planet right now. We have to understand that, we have to respect that. I’m not sure I can ride that fast anymore. I certainly hope it works out. If he has other offers and he wants to go somewhere else or go to a Spanish team, perhaps, that’s his decision, but I would encourage him to give this situation an opportunity and I would look forward to racing with him.”

Contador was frustrated this year at not being invited to defend his ‘07 Tour crown and has more than made up for that by winning the other two Grand Tours. Top of the wish list for 2009 for the Spaniard has to be the Tour de France.

Armstrong responded to a question asking whether he would ride the Giro (a race he has never entered) by saying he had not ruled it out yet adding that he liked Italian food.  As the race is having it’s 100th birthday next year it would be an attractive race for the veteran and would be a good stage to highlight his cancer initiatives, something that was not lost on him.

Definately on the list are the Tour of Australia (Tour Down Under), the Tour de France (assuming Astana get an invite) and the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike race (he was 2nd in this years edition).  No mention was made of other races but he traditionally used the Dauphine Libere as a last minute conditioning ride before the Tour and he has mentioned previously that he wanted to take the cancer message globally using his comeback.  There has to be an American race on the list somewhere presumably but other countries could feature although Armstrong was never known for a large racing calendar like Cadel Evans for example.

Assuming Contador stays put in Astana, there must also be a deal for support for him from Armstrong, perhaps in the Giro but it is likely that the team would start both men with a view to deciding who is better on the road.  That would limit the amount of riders that could join them assuming that some of the teams stars would rather race themselves than operate as little more than domestiques but Armstrong always had strong riders in his shadow who pounded themselves into the road for him everyday and only made a name for themselves by switching teams.  Although they were caught as dopers Landis and Hamilton are the two that jump out immediately.  The one thing in his favour is that Armstrong is going to attract so much exposure that riding for him will guarantee exposure too.

Doping was also on the agenda with Armstrong introducing the former head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory and chief science officer of Anti-Doping Sciences Institute, Don Catlin, as the man who will lead an independent specific testing programme which aims to remove any doubt about whether Armstrong is clean.   Armstrong also said he will publish all the testing data on the web, a novel approach that will have members of the public and press minutely analyzing his performance over the coming year no doubt looking for inconsistencies.

“Beyond today, I am not going to tell you how clean I am, and I’m not gonna insinuate how dirty the others are. I’m going to ride my bike and I’m going to spread this message around the world and Don Catlin can tell you if I am clean or not” he said.

So it is a case of watch this space to see will Contador jump ship with Armstrong’s return to road racing scheduled for January in Oz.