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Armstrong won’t be in Leadville Trail 100

Associated Press
Vail CO, Colorado

Lance Armstrong won’t race in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race on Saturday. Organizers had hoped to team the seven-time Tour de France winner with Floyd Landis.

“Lance will not be attending Leadville but will be at the event in Colorado Springs on Thursday evening,” spokesman Mark Higgins told The Associated Press in an e-mail Tuesday.

Armstrong is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at a fundraiser for “Kids on Bikes” on Thursday night in Colorado Springs, CO.



Leadville 100 organizers had hoped to land Armstrong in its 100-mile race of 1,000 mountain bikers, including Landis, whose pro cycling career has been in limbo since he tested positive for synthetic testosterone at last year’s Tour.

Armstrong’s longtime personal cycling coach, Chris Carmichael, is signed up for Saturday’s race. Ken Chlouber, the race’s co-founder, said he’s holding out hope that Armstrong will join him.

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“The deadline for us mortals was February, but for Lance it will be 30 seconds before the starting gun goes off. Actually, let’s make that 10 seconds,” Chlouber told the AP. “If Lance shows up, he’ll be in the front row right alongside Floyd Landis.”

With or without Armstrong, Chlouber said that he expects the seven-hour mark to finally fall in the 14th running of the Leadville 100 race.

“We don’t think for Floyd the race is going to last very long,” he said.

With a surgically repaired hip, Landis rode for charity at the Teva Mountain Games in Colorado two months ago, his first real race of any kind since his victory ride down the Champs-Elysees in Paris last July. He finished an unofficial 49th, nearly 25 minutes behind the first-place finisher in a two-hour grind through the mountains of Vail.


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