Tough break for Astana, Levi Liepheimer out out with broken wrist
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- July
- 17
Lance Armstrong’s top teammate on Astana did not start Stage 13 due to a broken wrist he sustained in an accident at the end of yesterday’s stage. He crashed with Cadel Evans with about 2 kilometers left in the 
race, which he finished.
Liepheimer was in fourth place only .39 seconds back. 35 year-old Liepheimer was having a terrific year and had this to say on his Twitter account, “My wrist is broken. I can’t describe how disappointed I am” read the post.
Johan Bruyneel told CyclingNews.com this, “He had a bad night so we took him to the hospital, where we saw the fracture this morning,” he said. “Obviously it’s disappointing and for us it changes a lot. He was fourth on GC and he’s one of the guys that could have won the Tour.”
“We’d wanted to keep our options open and this morning we lost one of those options. Strategically we are now weaker and it is likely to motivate the other teams to attack us today.” Bruyneel added.
This will affect Lance Armstrong who really counted on his American teammate on the climbs and weakens the strongest team in the race. Lance said this on Twitter , Lance Armstrong’s top teammate on Astana did not start Stage 13 due to a broken wrist he sustained in an accident at the end of yesterday’s stage. He crashed with Cadel Evans with about 2 kilometers left in the race, which he finished.
Liepheimer was in fourth place only .39 seconds back. 35 year-old Liepheimer was having a terrific year and had this to say on his twitter account, “My wrist is broken. I can’t describe how disappointed I am.”
My wrist hurts a lot but it doesn’t compare to the pain of watching the Tour leave me behind and not be able to ride the Tour with my teammates,” Leipheimer said in a statement. “We’ve had a big battle so far. We’re the favorites, and I wanted to be part of that.”
Leipheimer and Armstrong have a close relationship within Astana, which Armstrong says is riven by “tension” with Contador.
“He’s a good friend of mine so it makes it even more unfortunate, but that’s cycling,” said Armstrong, stressing that Leipheimer’s absence is a big loss.
This will affect Lance Armstrong who really counted on his American teammate on the climbs and weakens the strongest team in the race. Armstrong had this to say first on twetter, “Woke up to bad news. Levi is out with a broken wrist. Damn..”
He later added, “You saw even there, in some stages in the Pyrenees, when there was an attack, we had four guys there. And now, one’s gone, Not only does it hurt us, I think it helps the others in terms of morale, and thinking perhaps that the team has been weakened.”
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 7:00 AM by Randall Wolf. 
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