Lance Armstrong Has a Book, Amazing Abs, Makes Up Feuds but Really Hates Contador

It’s the holiday season, so the talk show circuit is rife with celebrities having some product to plug. Add Lance Armstrong to the mix.

The greatest cyclist of all time, cancer survivor and bonafide American hero has a book out, Comeback 2.0: Up Close and Personal, which by the looks of it, is more coffee table book than in-depth behind-the-scenes tale of his return to last year’s Tour de France.

There are plenty of photos. And oh, those abs. They’re quite intoxicating. They’re the stuff to make other coffee table books jealous. Step aside Ansel Adams, Lance is coming over, and he’s bringing a six-pack.

But I digress.

Armstrong was plugging his book on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, and in the typical ‘talking sports without really talking sports’ way, dropped a few shots at his old teammate, and reigning Tour de France champion, Alberto Contador.

⇥“It wasn’t a great relationship. We’re not having any tapas later on.” ⇥⇥“He’s a good rider. Whatever.” “We’ve got our own team.” “We’re divorced.” ⇥

And so on. That’s all fine to say, and he said it all on a comedy show, so there’s probably some latitude extended there. Armstrong has made no secret about his (mutual) hatred of Contador. In fact, the teammates were even bickering during the race last year. But then there’s this, from Sport&Style in Australia:⇥LANCE ARMSTRONG has revealed that he deliberately created conflicts during his seven-year reign as the Tour de France champion to sharpen his competitive edge, but the 38-year-old Texan is adamant that his fallout with this year’s Spanish winner Alberto Contador is for real.⇥⇥In an exclusive interview for the December issue of Sport&Style, Armstrong speaks about the former Astana teammates’ rift in this year’s race (in which he finished third) that has set the stage for a tumultuous head-to-head clash next year when they compete for rival teams.⇥

⇥⇥“It will make for an epic build-up, an epic Tour. Those key stages will be epic” he says.⇥

When discussing his ‘fight’ with Contador, the reporter must have asked Armstrong if he’d ever gotten in any actual fights. Here’s that reply: ⇥“I got into a few fights. There was only one time when I really got my ass kicked,” he recalls of his mid-teen years. “I had gotten into a fight with another guy. I kicked his ass pretty good, or he gave up. [His friends] then came out and f---ing kicked the s--- out of me. But that wasn’t one of those events that shaped [me]. No, my epiphany was being sick. That was like: ‘Winning, losing, winning, dying ... listen.’“Book to push or not, we’re seven months out and the promotion is already heating up. This bike race might get interesting come July.↵