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E-mail This StoryAUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Is Plano native Lance Armstrong coming back to cycling?
A report in a prominent cycling journal suggests that may be the case. And the seven-time Tour de France champion has put himself forward for drug testing, a necessary step for any return to the highest level of the sport he once dominated.
But any Armstrong comeback won't take place with the Astana cycling team, as cycling journal VeloNews reported. Citing anonymous sources, its Web site said Monday that the 36-year-old would compete with Astana in the 2009 Tour de France and four other road races: the Amgen Tour of California, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia and the Dauphine-Libere.
Team press officer Philippe Maertens denied that report Tuesday.
"There are no contacts or plans of Team Astana to take Lance Armstrong," he told The Associated Press by phone from Belgium. "As far as I know, Lance Armstrong doesn't have plans to do road cycling. But that's a question you have to ask Armstrong,
"We have no plans."
Astana team director Johan Bruyneel, who was with Armstrong for all seven Tour wins from 1999-2005, said he considered it "very unlikely" that he would ride in the Tour again.
"He is a man who stays in good shape," Bruyneel said Tuesday in Sabinanigo, Spain, at the Spanish Vuelta, according to national news agency EFE. "He also does cyclocross and has run marathons. But I see it very unlikely he will compete again in the Tour of France. For me it is just a rumor, although I will have to speak with him."
The Astana team was not allowed to compete in this year's Tour after Alexandre Vinokourov was kicked out of the 2007 Tour for testing positive and the team quit the race.
Maertens said rumors that Armstrong might come out of retirement had been circulating for a few weeks.
"If it would be true that Armstrong wants to come back it would be stupid for us to say no," Maertens said. “But it's not the case."
Armstrong at least appears willing to submit to drug testing.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency confirmed Armstrong is part of its out-of-competition testing pool and would be eligible for elite competition on Feb. 1, 2009. The Amgen Tour of California begins Feb. 14.
Pat McQuaid, the head of cycling's governing body, told The AP that he learned a couple of weeks ago that Armstrong is in the testing system in the United States.
"So, if he wants to come back to racing he's every right to come back,” said McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union. “Good luck to him.”
McQuaid suggested that the Plano native may be hoping to take advantage of new, more rigorous drug-testing procedures in cycling to answer skeptics who suspect that the champion might have used drugs when he was at the top of his game.
"It may be that he has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder because of the accusations and rumors surrounding him, none of which were ever proven," he said. "And he wants to come back and show that, now that there is a new system in place which is the biological passport which can show any type of manipulation of the blood, he wants to come back and show that he is the athlete he claims he was, that his results have shown."
Armstrong did not respond to a text message or voice mails left by the AP. His manager, Mark Higgins, also did not respond to voice mails left by the AP.
Armstrong, who overcame testicular cancer, has largely turned his competitive juices to running marathons since he retired from competitive cycling three years ago.
In August, he finished second in the Leadville Trail 100, a lung-searing 100-mile mountain bike race through the Colorado Rockies.
"We know that Lance continued training hard after that mountain bike race," Maertens said in a separate e-mail to the AP. "He will do some cyclocross races as well in the USA."
McQuaid agreed that Armstrong's fitness could allow for a comeback.
"He's been running marathons and doing all sorts of other stuff,” he said. “He hasn't really let himself go in any way.”
Associated Press Writers Frank Jordans in Geneva, Jerome Pugmire in Paris and Daniel Woolls in Madrid contributed to this report.
