Life at Team Astana is different now that Lance Armstrong is with the team, according to Gregory...
Gregory Rast (Image credit: JF Quenet)
Life at Team Astana is different now that Lance Armstrong is with the team, according to Gregory Rast. A five-star resort hotel and a noticeable increase in the number of reporters and photographers on the scene are two immediate examples. Armstrong, however, is not being set apart and shares everything that his teammates have.
Rast, 28, said that instead of living alone in a suite, Armstrong shares a room with Levi Leipheimer, and the seven-time Tour de France winner has the same meals as his teammates. The Swiss rider even sat next to the American Thursday night at dinner. "He looked exhausted. The press conference wore him out," he told the Swiss magazine Blick.
Rast also observed his famous teammate when the team went surfing. "It was obviously not Lance's first time on a surfboard. But he got dumped in the water too, and that upset him! I just laughed when it happened to me."
The team was divided into two groups for training, and one day this week Rast trained with the Armstrong-Leipheimer group. "But I'm not crazy. They went too fast for me. I've only been back in training for three weeks, but Lance has been training for months." Otherwise, said Rast, he is in the "more comfortable" group with his roommate, Andreas Klöden. (SW)
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Based in the southeastern United States, Peter produces race coverage for all disciplines, edits news and writes features. The New Jersey native has 30 years of road racing and cyclo-cross experience, starting in the early 1980s as a Junior in the days of toe clips and leather hairnets. Over the years he's had the good fortune to race throughout the United States and has competed in national championships for both road and 'cross in the Junior and Masters categories. The passion for cycling started young, as before he switched to the road Peter's mission in life was catching big air on his BMX bike.
