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Armstrong has been good for Tour, organizers say

Posted on: Saturday, 23 July 2005, 06:59 CDT

ST ETIENNE, France (Reuters) - Lance Armstrong's domination of the Tour de France has not hit the event's popularity, its organizers said on Saturday.

"The Tour was not extremely exciting because Lance Armstrong stunned his rivals without even winning a stage," Christian Prudhomme told a news conference on the penultimate day of the Tour.

"Yet did you see fewer spectators on the side of the road? No. Have television audiences gone down? No. Armstrong contributed to the Tour myth by helping it develop outside France."

Armstrong is poised to win his seventh Tour on Sunday and will then retire. His final Tour is already being seen as one of his easiest. By overtaking Germany's Jan Ullrich in the opening time trial in Noirmoutier, the American virtually put an end to any suspense from the very start.

"Next year will be different. There will be suspense and people will be even more interested," said Prudhomme.

"We're about to turn a page and we cannot be certain about the script. We could be entering a transition phase as was the case after Miguel Indurain or see a new generation open up with riders like Italy's Damiano Cunego or Spain's Alejandro Valverde.

"Or maybe his current rivals will take advantage of his retirement to take over," he added.

Fellow Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc, who will step down next year, said he had found this year's Tour more interesting than the last.

"At my age, I could be blase. But I was not bored once. There were breakaways every day and animation. We sometimes had attacks thanks to Alexander Vinokourov, Ivan Basso and even Jan Ullrich.

"I found it more exciting than some Tours in the 1990s in the Indurain era or even in the times of (Eddy) Merckx and (Bernard) Hinault when the race was locked," he said.

Source: REUTERS

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