If Lance Armstrong is ready to return to cycling, Astana team boss Johann Bruyneel doesn't want the seven-time Tour de France champion to ride for anybody else.
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"If his return is something serious and he decided to return to professional cycling, the only thing I can say is that I have a team and I can't imagine being at a race and seeing Lance with a CSC or Rabobank jersey," Bruyneel told reporters Tuesday at the Spanish Vuelta cycling race.
Citing anonymous sources, the cycling journal VeloNews reported Monday on its website that the 36-year-old Armstrong 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.
Astana press officer Philippe Maertens again 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," Maertens added. "We have no plans."
Bruyneel said there was no deal to sign Armstrong.
"Firstly, we need to know if the rumor has base and, if it does, we need to know what is the motivation of the rider and then we'll talk," said Bruyneel, who was with Armstrong for all seven Tour wins from 1999-2005. "At the moment we are really far from all of that."
The Astana team wasn't even 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.
And Bruyneel is uncertain whether even Armstrong can return after three years out of professional cycling.
"He's continued training and he's done marathons, but he's coming in with a very different style of life to a sportsman," Bruyneel said. "Three years without competing is a lot."
Still, Astana rider Alberto Contador welcomed the thought of riding alongside Armstrong at cycling's most prestigious race next year.
"It would be an honor to be able to ride with Lance Armstrong," Contador, the 2007 Tour champion, told Europa Press news agency. "Nothing in this news seems strange to me; Lance Armstrong is such an important rider that you can allow for everything.
