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Leipheimer reflects on a long and interesting season

Published: Oct. 6, 2008
Leipheimer made a big mark on this year's Vuelta, but he remained a team player.
Leipheimer made a big mark on this year's Vuelta, but he remained a team player.
Photo: Graham Watson

After a heavy late-season schedule that included the Olympic Games, the Vuelta a España and the world time trial championship, Astana’s Levi Leipheimer is finally back in the U.S., enjoying his off-season at the Santa Rosa, California, home he shares with his wife, former pro racer Odessa Gunn.

When VeloNews reached him on October 1, Leipheimer was just back from a mountain bike ride through Santa Rosa’s Annadel Park, the largest State Park located within a city limit in California.

“I love the mountain bike,” Leipheimer said, explaining the joys of his Trek Remedy’s six inches of travel. “I’m getting pretty good, actually. I’m thinking of joining the downhill circuit.”

Following a hectic finish to an unpredictable season, Leipheimer can’t be faulted for finding solace on the trails near his home.

The journey of his 2008 season began in February, just days before defending his title at the Amgen Tour of California, when Tour de France organizers ASO announced that his Astana team would not be invited to this year’s race.

A “Let Levi Ride” campaign, organized by Trek Bicycles, ensued. And though the team was banned from all ASO events, Astana was given a last-minute reprieve to compete in the Giro d’Italia, where Leipheimer, in his first Tour of Italy, finished 18th overall while riding in support of overall winner Alberto Contador.

Leipheimer capped off the first half of his season with a prologue win and third overall at the Dauphiné Libéré, a race he won in 2006, before returning to the U.S.

While Carlos Sastre, Cadel Evans and Bernard Kohl were battling on the roads of France, and Garmin’s Christian Vande Velde took the mantle of top American Tour star, Leipheimer and teammate Chris Horner handled the domestic peloton’s best to bring Leipheimer the overall win at the Cascade Classic, held in July in Horner’s hometown of Bend, Oregon.

August and September brought trips to Beijing, the Vuelta and the world championships, with Leipheimer missing out on the podium only in Varese, Italy, where he finished fourth in the world time trial championship, 13 seconds behind compatriot David Zabriskie.

A Tale of Two Seasons
Without the possibility of starting the Tour de France, it’s not a fair comparison to weigh Leipheimer’s 2008 season against 2007 — his best to date. Still, an argument could be made that Leipheimer’s 2008 results showed that he was every bit as strong as he was last year.

Leipheimer won the overall at the Amgen Tour of California both years — with time trial victories at both — and finished on the podium of a grand tour both years. In 2007 he won the final time trial at the Tour de France and stood third on the podium in Paris; in 2008, he won a pair of time trials at the Vuelta and stood second on the podium in Madrid.

In 2007 Leipheimer won time trials at the Tour de Georgia and Tour of Missouri, races won by Discovery Channel teammates out of race-deciding breakaways. He also finished second overall at the Tour of Germany and took the U.S. national road championship. In 2008 he won the prologue of the Dauphiné Libéré, where he finished third overall, earned a bronze medal at the Olympic time trial in Beijing and finished fourth at the world time trial championship.

“Considering that I wasn’t able to do the Tour this year, I think that this year was a great year,” Leipheimer said. “Winning California, winning an Olympic medal, and then going out and taking two stage wins and second overall at Vuelta, that’s not bad. I don’t know how to rate [this season versus 2007]. Last year winning a stage in the Tour, and the very next day, standing on the podium in Paris, that was a highlight of my career. But they are both very good years.”

The heartbreak of Astana’s Tour exclusion wasn’t the only bombshell to shake up Leipheimer’s season. Instead his 2008 season continued its rollercoaster ride during the Vuelta, where he won a pair of time trials and also learned that former U.S. Postal Service teammate Lance Armstrong was planning to join his Astana team in 2009. (Leipheimer was a member of U.S. Postal Service in 2000 and 2001, though he rarely raced alongside Armstrong and was not a member of a Tour-winning squad.)

When velonews.com first reported the story of Armstrong’s return to racing on September 8, Leipheimer said he didn’t believe it.

“To be honest, in the beginning it was a big shock,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was a joke by someone in the media, or Lance himself trying to play with someone, like ASO, I don’t know. We were in the middle of the Vuelta, and as a team we decided, ‘hey, let’s not even think about this, let’s not talk to the media about it. We’re here to race, and this is just a distraction right now.’ As time went by, and the race ended, I was able to digest it more. I tried not to react too quickly. All of us, we focused on the race, and we pulled it off, but it was a little stressful.”

A Tale of Two Riders
Adding to the drama in Spain, Leipheimer finished second overall in Madrid, just 46 seconds behind Contador, whose win secured his triple grand tour crown.

Though Leipheimer couldn’t have predicted it during the Vuelta, statistics later showed that Contador and Leipheimer were dead even on actual race time, with Contador taking his lead based on time bonuses. Leipheimer’s stage 20 time trial win on the Alto de Navacerrada, 31 seconds ahead of Contador, gave the Spaniard reason to worry, and Leipheimer says he distinctly heard Spanish fans on the roadside yelling “Mas despasio” — urging the American to slow down.

“It just made me go faster,” Leipheimer said.

The day after his historic Vuelta win, Contador was quoted in Spanish daily AS saying, “I will only say that it is not normal that a worker finishes less than a minute from you. If Navacerrada had lasted 20 kilometers more, I do not know what would have happened.”

Leipheimer read the interview, and said his first reaction was disbelief.

“I tried not to get too upset about it,” Leipheimer said. “I thought if he didn’t mean that in a certain way, he’s going to call me. And he did. He called me the next day and said, ‘I gave an interview to AS,’ which by the way has a history of stirring the pot, and he said he didn’t mean to say it the way they had quoted him.”

Leipheimer said he understood the stresses on Contador, who was trying to complete the triple crown in his native country, but added that he rode the Vuelta as a domestique first, and the team’s backup plan second.

“I think, to be honest, Alberto definitely felt like I was a threat to him to win the race,” Leipheimer said. “Obviously — I was the biggest threat to him to win the race. But it was all within the team tactics, within the team directions. I didn’t do anything against the orders of team. He did have a crash on one of those transitional stages between Asturias and Madrid. What if he had crashed and broken a collarbone? I would never wish that upon him, but the team had a big insurance policy with me in second place. And the team was so strong that I never had to do a lot of work. [Andreas] Klöden was there when it was just five or six riders left. After it was all set and Alberto took the lead on the Angrilu, all he and I had to do was follow the best riders.”

As far as finishing runner-up to his teammate based on time bonuses, Leipheimer said he’s at peace with the outcome of the race.

“I chose to be where I am at, and I think the situation in the Vuelta — with Alberto being the big favorite, and he’s Spanish, it’s the Tour of Spain, and he was trying to complete the triple crown and make history — it takes a team to do that,” Leipheimer said. “I am part of the team, so that’s how it goes.”

Enter Armstrong
At the Interbike trade show in late September Armstrong said he hadn’t yet spoken with either Contador or Leipheimer about his plan to join them at Astana in 2009. As of October 1, Leipheimer said that was still the case.

“I was at the Vuelta, the worlds, traveling home, and I’ve only been home a few days. We haven’t had time,” Leipheimer said. “We can talk to each other on phone, but it’s probably better to do it in person, when we see each other at training camp. I am excited about it. I think it’s a good thing. The cool thing is that everyone is going to be waiting to see if he can come back to that level. And that’s good. Everyone is interested, and me too. I’ll be waiting to see how good he can be.”

It’s a variation on a scenario Leipheimer has found himself in nearly since he joined the Discovery Channel team at the end of the 2006 season. Before the 2007 season had even begun, team manager Johan Bruyneel announced he’d signed Italian Ivan Basso, who had been sent home from the 2006 Tour and dropped by his CSC squad months later because of links to Operacion Puerto.

Though reportedly fuming after hearing Bruyneel had signed Basso, Leipheimer handled the situation diplomatically, saying at the team’s pre-season camp, “I don’t have the track record that Ivan has. He’s going to go into this year’s Tour as a big favorite, probably the biggest favorite.”

However the time the 2007 Tour started Basso was serving a suspension and Leipheimer had returned to his role as team leader. But Contador, who impressively won that year’s Paris-Nice, was waiting in the wings. When the young Spaniard was the only rider to match yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen in the mountains, Leipheimer was forced to concede that his teammate was the stronger rider, saying atop Plateau de Beille, “Alberto is the best climber in the race and he really deserves it. I have no problem that he finished ahead of me."

By the time last month’s Vuelta had ended, and he had taken time to digest the news of Armstrong’s return, Leipheimer said he returned to the same diplomatic stance he’d taken when faced with riding in support of Basso and Contador. In terms of losing out on his own opportunities, he remained philosophical.

“I know Lance is a good teammate,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of worries about that. People can look at it both ways, like oh, it’s bad, because now the now best rider in the history of cycling comes back, and he’s on my team, and it knocks me down. But I tend to look at it the other way. If I am around the best riders, that’s going to make me the best rider I can be. And I think that is what happened to me over the last couple of years. I came to the team with the best riders in the world, with Alberto and Basso there, and it really motivated me to step it up, because there was no choice. I had to.

“I think that with having Lance back on the team, not just me but everyone on team will step up and improve. Cycling will get more attention. It already has, because of this. It’s good of our team. I’m just going to be positive and try to step it up again.”

And though Leipheimer appears to have accepted his spot for 2009 alongside the best Tour rider in history and the best grand tour rider of the past two years, he acknowledged that it would be difficult for a rider such as Contador to ride in Armstrong’s shadow.

“I’m not going to lie, it is a difficult situation,” Leipheimer said. “Here you have guy who is 25 years old, who is emerging, he is just coming into greatness. There is a lot of pressure on him. At the Tour of Spain, it was the last piece of this triple-crown puzzle, and he was definitely feeling the pressure. He was nervous. I’m not criticizing him — who wouldn’t be nervous in that position? And the fact that he could still pull it off and win the race, that shows that he deserves to win, and that he is a champion. And the news of Lance coming back didn’t help to calm him down.”

Asked for his take on the rumors that Contador might jump ship to another team — Contador also told AS sharing a team with Armstrong would be "seriously difficult” — Leipheimer said it wouldn’t be a surprise based on Contador’s ambitions so much as it would be due to fiscal realities.

“I’m not talking to Alberto or Johan about that,” Leipheimer said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he went, but it kind of would, because I’m not sure who has the money to sign him. People throw it out there, like, ‘Oh, just switch teams.’ The Spanish people are telling Alberto to just switch teams. It’s not that easy. Who is going to buy out his contract? And obviously he is going to want to get paid. So you narrow down a lot of teams right there.

“So where can he go? He’s not going to go to Katusha. He’s not going to a Russian team. He needs to be on a Spanish team, he’s got to feel comfortable and have people who really believe in him and are there to die for him. Guys like Benjamin Noval, who is his best friend and bodyguard on and off the bike — he’s going to go wherever Alberto goes, and he’s not the only one. So it’s not an easy transfer. And I would imagine the sponsors of the team, and Johan, they aren’t going to let Alberto go for free. They’ve invested a lot of time and money, and it’s a business, so they’ve got to get something out of it. So in that sense it would surprise me if he were able to go somewhere, because wherever he goes will have to come up with a lot of money.”

Into 2009
For 2009 Leipheimer said he’d like to defend his title at the Amgen Tour of California, a race that is expected to see the return of not only Armstrong but also Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. Beyond February, Leipheimer said he’s not making any predictions.

“I’ve won the Amgen Tour of California the last two years, and I would love to win it again,” he said. “But it’s not the end of the world if I don’t win it again. There are so many races that somewhere along the line I should have a good result and win some races, whether it’s California, or the Dauphine, or Paris-Nice, or whatever.

As for the Tour de France, faced with a squad that also boasts podium finishers Armstrong, Contador, Andreas Klöden, Leipheimer said the team’s goal will likely hinge on Armstrong’s progress.

“When it comes to the Tour, it’s a big question mark whether or not Lance will come back to that level,” Leipheimer said. “As a team player in a team sport, I will support whoever is the strongest. I’ve done it before, and I don’t have a problem with it. I would love to win the Tour, and if the circumstances are there, I will go for it. But I’m not going to screw anyone. If Lance comes back and he killing it and he is back on top, I will be there to help him win. Alberto as well. We’ve proven in the past that you can have someone win the Tour and Vuelta and have someone from the team on the podium. Alberto and I been on two grand tour podiums together now.”

Beyond mountain biking, Leipheimer said he and his wife have plenty of projects to work on during the off season, based largely around horses, goats and hens his wife keeps in a recently built barn.

Other than that, he said he simply hopes to catch up with friends, have fun and relax, adding, “Bike racing can be stressful at times.”