Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is set to ride the Amstel Gold Race in April, according to wielerflits.nl. In an interview with Dutch TV programme NOS Studio Sport – to be broadcast tomorrow evening at 20:30 CET on the channel Netherlands 3 – Armstrong says he will include the Dutch race as part of his preparation for the 2010 Tour and his bid for an eighth victory.
Armstrong has twice finished second in the race, held in the Limburg region of the Netherlands. He was beaten in a sprint by then Dutch champion Michael Boogerd in 1999, and in 2001 Boogerd’s teammate Erik Dekker proved faster; again in a two-man sprint. Both of Armstrong’s second places were when the race finished on the flat in the Maastricht; the finish line has since been switched to the top of the Cauberg hill in the nearby town of Valkenburg.
So far Armstrong has confirmed his presence at some races in 2010 as a build up to his main target in July. He is set to compete in the Tour of California instead of the Giro d’Italia, which he rode in 2009, as the two now clash after the US race moved it’s position in the calendar from February to May. The Tour of Murcia, in March will likely be his first European race, as it has been in previous years. Late last year he hinted that he may ride some of the Ardennes classics, specifically Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It now seems that he regards his results of 1999 and 2001 as unfinished business and he wants Amstel too.