Lance Armstrong admitted on Monday he still lacked the “magic ratio” to leave riders trailing after failing to convert a promising breakaway in the Tour Down Under’s build-up race.
Armstrong said he needed extra strength and less weight after his attack, alongside fellow Tour de France winner Oscar Pereiro, was snuffed out with three laps to go.
“If I were a little lighter … then we would have a different conversation. Ultimately you have to be as strong as possible and as light as possible,” he said.
“I might be stronger than I was last year and a little bit lighter, but that doesn’t equal that magic ratio of being able to ride away.”
Sunday’s one-hour Adelaide street race kicked off the second season of Armstrong’s comeback as he aims for an eighth Tour de France title and at becoming its oldest winner at 38.
The American, who won consecutive Tours de France from 1999 to 2005 and placed third after returning from retirement last year, looked surprisingly strong in the event which was won by Team Sky’s Greg Henderson.
Armstrong has played down his chances of victory in this week’s Tour Down Under, raced over six relatively short, flat stages which favour sprint specialists.
“I was suffering, as I think everybody else was,” he said. “I think the other guys in the group thought that in general it was a faster race than last year’s race. I think the wind made it technically a little bit tricky.”
Armstrong also reflected on his brush with life-threatening testicular cancer as he put the name of his Livestrong charity to a new research centre at Adelaide’s Flinders Medical Centre.
“It puts all the other stuff that we do on the bike in perspective. For me personally, if you don’t make it through a centre like this you’re not here,” he said.
“I’m not here, I’m not winning a tour or seven tours, or coming to the Tour Down Under or standing over there talking. It’s first things first, for sure.”
The Tour Down Under, the southern hemisphere’s biggest race contested over 800 kilometres of Australian countryside, starts on Tuesday. — AFP