While the goals and agenda behind Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling had never been entirely clear, he outlined yesterday that he intends to stay in the sport for another ten years.

The sun may be setting, as he put it himself yesterday, on his time in the peloton, but he confirmed his intention to lead a team as manager and owner, “for as long as we can”. He added, ominously, that “we think we can organise the best cycling team in the world.” There is a strong chance that a team named “Team Livestrong” will be on the start line for the Tour de France in July. This is an extraordinary turnaround that follows the financial disintegration of Astana, Armstrong’s team, who need saving inside three weeks.

Armstrong’s team-mates have not been paid for two months. And if a $2 million bond has not been replenished by May 27, Astana could have their ProTour licence revoked. There would then arise the possibility of Armstrong and his team-mates, including Alberto Contador, the favourite to win the Tour, having no team in which to compete in it.

If ever there was a test of Armstrong’s influence, it is now, for he faces a race against time to drum up the backing to fund his team until the end of the year, a figure that he put at $7-8 million. And it is not as if he has much time to work the phones because tomorrow he starts a monumental 21-stage race, the centennial Giro D’Italia.

This extraordinary scenario was being played out yesterday in Venice, where the race starts with a 20km team time-trial.

The pace at which Armstrong’s story has moved remains astonishing. It was only 6½ weeks ago that he crashed in a race in Spain and broke a collarbone in four places, but he is ready to race and has declared that he will be “disappointed” if he does not win a stage. And he is simultaneously having to fan the spirits of a team who are not being paid and yet are supposed to be helping their strongest man (at present), Levi Leipheimer, to the winner’s pink jersey.

Armstrong confirmed yesterday that he and Johan Bruyneel, who has been at his side since the Nineties as his teams’ sporting director, had long talked about co-owning a team. Astana’s problems, however, have bounced them into action earlier than expected.

Astana are a Kazakh team, funded by a consortium of Kazakh businesses, yet Air Astana has ducked out and other companies have struggled to pay. Astana could yet find the funding but Armstrong does not seem exactly positive. “These Kazakhs,” he said, “they don’t return phone calls and there’s not a lot of clarity about what is going to happen.” In the long term, he was upbeat about finding the cash. “Interest has been very high,” he said, “though it’s never a done deal until you get the funding.”

Of the short-term, he said: “I suspect we can find some funding that would get us from June to the end of the year. It wouldn’t be the full commitment that was promised by Astana, but it would be better than nothing.”

There can surely be no athlete more capable of pulling it off. While his Giro rivals rested between training rides, Armstrong, seven times the winner of the Tour de France, was politicking. Witness these feeds on his Twitter page. Tuesday: “Meeting with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini. Bright fella.” Wednesday: “Had a great conversation with Governor Ritter from Colorado. Working on something. Stay tuned.”

Within days of the announcement last September of his comeback, Angelo Zomegnan, who runs the Giro, was on Armstrong’s doorstep in Austin. It has been written that he offered a $3 million (now about £2 million) appearance fee — a figure that Zomegnan denies — but whatever the price, the deal had to involve high-profile interface with the Italian Government.

For now, Armstrong needs big business. But in the future, we now know where we will find him. The 37-year-old said that standing on the sidelines would be no competition for the “rush of success in an event.

But you can’t win the Tour de France when you are 40. At some point, the sun sets. I could be beyond that point now.”