Entertainment For Lively Minds
Le Tour a commencé
Posted by stimpy on 3 July 2010 - 4:52pm.
...and it's started! I'll be slouching on the sofa every afternoon in July watching the great soap opera unfold.
For me, summer isn't here until Le Tour starts.
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Don't care who wins
as long as it's not Armstrong. Can't stand the man.
Don't care who wins
as long as it's a great contest, but then I feel like that about any sporting event in which I take an interest.
I wonder if Cancellara
had the outboard motor on his bike today?
Oui, oui
Les hommes sur des bicyclettes! Ils sont magnifiques! La campagne! Les montagnes! Allons-y!*
*French vocabulary now exhausted, apart from 'deux bieres, s'il vous plait'. And I only got Allons-y from Docteur Qui.
Let's go with French Connection 2
This film gives the English speaking world "on y va".
British chances
It's amazing that after years without anyone racing who ever had a chance of winning Le Maillot Jaune (not since Robert Millar in the mid 80's) this year we have Bradley Wiggins in with a shout as well as Mark Cavendish as an even bigger favourite for Le Maillot Vert.
Here's a link to the Wall Street Journal story mentioned in the ITV coverage about Floyd Landis's latest allegations about doping in the former US Postal team:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870491170457532675320058400...
I don't think anything
in that article will surprise anyone who has followed professional cycling over the last twenty years, sadly.
I just hope that the federal agent who busted Marion Jones and co (can't remember his name) does indeed investigate Landis's allegations, and then the truth will surely come out at last.
Let's try and keep this legally sound
Johan, but we'll let others read between the lines here:
Busted: Landis, Hamilton, Heras, Basso, Mayo, Ullrich, Vino and Valverde - all were either major tour challengers or implicit in campaigns to win it. That's those who were to the forefront of the peloton in the early to mid 2000s. How could anyone have beaten the doped Basso, Mayo or Ullrich in their pomp?
One story came to dominate cycling and it became bigger than the sport itself. It dominated every summer and it did so with an utter lack of class, grace or understanding for European cycling traditions.
I do hope the truth will out but it has the potential to be the biggest doping story in all of sport and will have explosive ramifications in many, many other areas.
Don't worry, am treading carefully here!
But "European cycling tradition"? This is a sport which has been drug-riddled since virtually day one. In the days long, long before WADA the riders were pretty open about it. The likes of Coppi and Anquetil admitted that they didn't ride on water alone.
Your list of busted riders of the last few years is just the tip of the iceberg. Look at the 70s and 80s - Kelly, Delgado, Fignon, Merckx, Maertens, Robert Millar, Elliot, Roche, Museeuw - all great champions, all failed dope tests or implicated by others. The list goes on and on. And are they ostracised? Are they black-balled from the sport? Far from it! They have jobs as race organisers, directeur-sportifs, commentators. No-one cares!
Sorry, my point European cycling traditions
wasn't simply about doping-free cyclists. (BTW, my hero Roche never failed a test, did he? I'm not saying he wasn't implicated especially after Fignon's recent revelations.)
My point was that the US Postal/ Discovery lot steamrollered into France every year and paid little attention to the Classics or other big races. Le Tour was the focus and outright combativeness to the cycling media and community was the order of the day. They offered little to the sport beyond July and with almost the entire senior roster now being implicated in some way, it could be argued they have taken as much away as they gave.
I just think they could have paid more respect to cycling's season but were allowed to get away with it by both the UCI and the ASO because of the huge profile that their wins raised in the US and Canada. They became bigger than the tour because of the power of their narrative.
A testimony from Team Sky's Michael Barry (Wiggo's personal concierge for this tour)might be interesting as will Garmin chief Jonathon Waughters, should it come to that.
(I hope you see the libel game I am playing)
Larry was charmless and nasty in cutting off former allies and has played a high stakes litigation game at every instance when challenged.
For that let's hope that Team Sky cover themselves in glory because the sport needs a clean team of quality riders.
Agree with all of that
And you're right about Roche, he never failed a test, but I think there was some pretty damning evidence from the files of one of those dodgy Italian doctors that he took EPO in his last year. I think it was all detailed in the Pantani biography which came out a few years ago.
Double
Soz
It must be summer.
Time for the annual competition to find out who can cycle round France the fastest whilst managing to frustrate the dope-testers.
It is a shame that the sport is so tainted. The TDF is one of the great sporting contests. I hope it can become clean. And I also hope that Lance Armstrong's alleged transgressions are proven. An odious man. And he got to shag Sheryl Crow as well. Not fair.
His pet name for her
was 'Juanita the Crow'.
Apparently she got bang into cycling while living with him in Girona - only to be dropped like a used (torturous doping simile deleted by lawyers) because she (deleted again at learned friend's advice).
He has fine music taste as a brief glance at his Twitter will confirm. He was 'rocking' Ryan Adams preparing for today's prologue and is a big mate of Pete Yorn.
Nah fuck him
His musical taste is no better than mine.
My hopes for this Tour
I would love to see Cadel keep covering his rainbow jersey in glory like he did at the Giro and in the classics. He's a great, gutsy rider I have so much time for.
I would love to see Wiggo and Sky to put Bertie the Accountant to his absolute limit in the mountains but I fear that the quite savage four or five days in the Pyrennes in the final week may be a stumbling block to that. (They go over the Tourmalet twice - how sadistic is that?)
There's only one big TT, on the second last day, so may be David Millar might struggle to make a big impact. I would love to see him win in a break like he almost did last year in Barcelona. He's won around Bastille Day before, so maybe the flat stage on July 15 after some tough mountains might suit him best.
I would love Cav to take the green jersey and finally shut down the whole argument about how the commissaires robbed him last year. He doesn't look himself, though.
Maybe a break away win for Nicholas Roche to wave the flag for the Irish.
I'd love to see an old fashioned second to last day TT fight like Roche v Delgado in 1987. That would be a belter after Cadel failed to do it a couple of years ago against Bertie and Levi.
Finally, I want one dramatic day of hard, punishing combat in the mountains - the kind that has you jumping up and down on the sofa and telling people who aren't interested to come and watch. For that, I'm looking to the 'Merckx-tribute' stage on the last Tuesday when they go over the Peyresourde, Tourmalet, Aspin and Ausbique. It's not a mountain top finish but might be a right chase to save seconds before that final TT.
I really think the Tuesday mountain stage has
the potential to be an absolute jaw-dropper...
Spot on
A big mountain stage in the Tour is a chance to see the human body pushed to its absolute limits. Despite all the scandals and suspicions, you won't see a greater display of courage and sheer will-power anywhere in sport.
Cycling may be rotten to the core, but it's still a glorious, inspiring, thrilling spectacle...
Couldn't have put it better myself.
The Tour is the only sporting event that has ever genuinely made me literally bite through my coffee mug (the 1984 Lemond - Fignon time trial finish on the Champs Elysees) and it's the only sporting event that's genuinely moved me to open mouthed, slack jawed wonder (that moment that Armstrong stared deep into Jan Ullrich's eyes before leaving him for dead on Alpe D'Huez in 2001)
All human life is there...
Cor..
That's something.
What Lance Armstrong does is astonishing. But what shows it to be so is Ullrich's reaction. As Lance powers away, he bows his head in utter defeat. A beaten man.
I've been up those hairpins many times in a coach. How anyone does it on a bike is beyond me. This year doesn't seem to contain any of the killer Alpine climbs but there's some bad 'uns elsewhere to make up for it.
It's not much of an exaggeration to say that
that moment triggered the start of Ullrich's decline as a top line cyclist. Within he year he was suffering from depression, was convicted of a drink-driving offence and admitted to using ecstasy and amphetamine.
Armstrong literally broke Ullrich that day on Alpe D'Huez.
Armstrong's psychology
I took the day off work to watch this stage and I well remember that Armstrong didn't have any support from his US Postal riders.
He played a game. The commentators reckoned he was struggling to keep up with the leading group. They speculated that he was in a bad way and just hanging on to the tail of the group. This was the final climb of a heavy day's climbing that had also included Col Du Madeleine.
It's not improbable then to believe Armstrong had also convinced Ullrich that he was struggling and Ullrich may well, in his head, have seen himself crossing the finish line first to at last achieve a significant victory over Armstrong.
Which was not to be.
Totally agree...
Ullrich had spent some years in Armstrong's shadow - the perennial second-place man - and that day it felt like Armstrong didn't just want to beat Ullrich but wanted to crush him.
I suspect Armstrong was thinking that sometimes it's not enough to win, sometimes you need to grind the other mans face in the dirt so he knows he's been beaten. Not very nice but very effective...
Here it is again
But, just who is that rider coming up behind? Because that looks like Roche - it's Stephen Stephen Roche.
I was in France - in the Pyrenees - for all that Tour
Brilliant.
Nice to see some of the gimmicky jerseys of days gone by there. Looked like Jean-Francois Bernard coming over the line towards in the "combination" jersey - a patchwork of Yellow, Green, Polka Dot and Red (which was the specialist hotspot sprint -separate from the Green if memory serves).
I'm glad they're gone again.
They are coming;
past the end of my street in Antwerp today;
That'd really be something
That'd really be something to see!
I was at a "bike nocturne" in Edinburgh, last night, and that was impressive, despite being on a teeny, tiny scale, in comparison to The Tour. It's quite visceral to be so close to really good riders as they hurtle past at scary speeds in a tight grouping.
Have fun!
Looks like
half of Belgium turned out for it too. Monstrous crowds.
Looks like
half of Belgium turned out for it too. Monstrous crowds.
and then
they all fell off.
*Exclusive* crash pic
A canine-induced collision, hairpin bend bedlam, and a biblical pile-up which produced an impassable wall of entangled bikes and riders. According to Sky rider Simon Gerrans, it could have been worse, too. See what he said in this interview:
A fantastic tour so far, some thoughts
* I'll get two of my top three (not a massive punt) but Cadel racing so hard in the Giro has punctured him. Likewise Basso and Wiggins.
* The route has been back loaded to favour the top climbers on GC so those who have lost time on other stages and want to go for lone breakaways have been allowed to do so. That's been marvellous, I took great pleasure in the eternal escapee Tommy Voeckler winning yesterday.
* Sammy Sanchez is a star.
* We need a 'die dog or shite the licence' tour where about three of four top men tear themselves apart for seven of the 21 days in the manner of Armstrong, Ullrich and Mayo in 2003.
* I have taken huge pleasure in the demise of Armstrong, who despite some attempts at humility, remained true to graceless form in tainting Lemond yesterday. Leaving that aside, his belief was that even in a new era he was good enough to win and he's been dreadful. I hope it's his footnote. A classless man throughout his life, at least in the sense of the cycling world. Really, f#ck him.
* Here's an idea: have the Eurosport commentary with the ITV punditry and journalism. ITV's backroom staff, Boardman, Imlach, Boulting and Rendell are the best in the business (in any sport) while my hero Stephen Roche (on Eurosport) is THE most tedious studio pundit in the world. Even AC Jimbo Richardson struggles to get anything lucid and concise from him.
* David Harmon and Sean Kelly are excellent commentators for Eurosport but Liggett and Sherwin are appalling on ITV. Liggett screams nonsense dramatically while often not recognising top flight riders while Sherwin has become cycling's Chris 'psychic' Kamara who looks into the very thoughts of riders: 'He's seen the motorcycle camera man and he's said I'm Alberto Contador and I'm on a mission and get out of my way.'
Liggett is so bad my missus (who is a recent convert to cycling) is now correcting him - yet he apparently has 38 years experience.
Whatever happens on today's monster stage, I have loved every single second - often watching the live and highlights several times in one day.
Prediction? Contador, Shleck, Menchov and hopefully for the US government to do Armstrong, but he had the presence to court that influence way back when. Surely they can't do the leading cancer survivor on the planet, that would be too big a story for us all to handle, wouldn't it?
It may be to big for American cycling to handle.
Contador
Whatever happened to sportsmanship? Unlike Boardman I think Contador showed a distinct lack of class when Schleck lost his chain. Claiming he didn't see it when he was 5 yards back and acceleratesd as Schleck faltered displays mendacity of the lowest order.
I hope he punctures today on a climb, with no support vehicle to hand, and Schleck leaves him.
A pedant writes
Doesn't mendacity mean telling lies??
Misplaced pedantry
Yes, mendacity does mean telling lies.
Meanwhile here's a view from ITV's Ned Boulting.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/nedboulting/100010875/tour-de-france-...
Well, as Carl points out
Contador did say he hadn't seen it.
Riding the Tour while blind? Nah - shabby.
...and it's done for another year.
Is there any sportsman who so dominates his discipline as Mark Cavendish dominates the sprint finishes?
With 300m to go he was 30m behind the leaders who were pedalling at 100%; in the last 200m Cavendish was in a different league to the other sprinters... Astounding.
Astounding indeed
Cavendish is a sprinter for whom the term "in a different class" might have been coined.
Incidentally, can I take this opportunity to recommend to anyone interested in the Tour (and in humourous travelogues) Tim Moore's French Revolutions?
Moore could be described (I've done so myself) as a younger, funnier, British equivalent of Bill Bryson, and the book in question documents his riding of the 2000 Tour route as a grossly under-prepared 36 year old. I challenge anyone to read the punchline to his account of riding back down Mont Ventoux - my favourite moment among many - without laughing aloud.
I'd hoped to re-read this book while watching this year's Tour, but foolishly lent it to my friend Sally a couple of weeks before the off and have so far failed to reclaim it. Still, there's always next year...
Ooo good call!
I have that somewhere and had completely forgotten it. Off to find it now....
I'm off to see Sally
The book's going nowhere, once I've retrieved it, until this time next year.
SuperCav
Absolutely amazing! There I was thinking he's blown it because he wasn't even in the shot and then suddenly he shoots through. What a fantastic win. It's a pity he couldn't crown with the green jersey.
I can recommend Tim Moore as well. Terrific read, from 'doing' the prologue to his Hallelujah moment when he's sitting at home watching the tour for real.
I do go on about Tim Moore
But he's a cracking writer. I'm re-reading Spanish Steps at the moment. I, too, have lent my copy of French Revolutions to someone. Must get it back.
I enjoyed Spanish Steps, too -
recommended to me by a friend who'd walked the Camino.
Have you tried Continental Drifter*? Moore's account therein of hiring a motor boat in Venice (it doesn't go terribly well) would be worth the price of purchase alone...
*(At present on loan to Mark the walker, to whom I lent French Revolutions last year. Moore-reading seems to become a habit you want to share.)
I've read everything he's done.
And I don't lend them out anymore.
The camera angle was just perfect to make the most of it...
As you say, he wasn't even in the shot until a few seconds before the line then he roared through the shot and seemed to even take the camera operator by surprise.
Can't see it on Youtube yet though.
Cav
Best since Cipo IMO.
Cipo v Cav
I was thinking much the same.
Does anyone have any idea of the respective top speeds that the two of them have reached over the final 400M? Sadly a competition we'll never see.
70kph
Dave Millar reckoned he recorded 70kph leading out Farrar last year, so that minus a few Ks due to fatigue.
Cav wins hands down
Cipo even won his World Championship with a long lead out train, if I remember correctly.
Cav won his last two stages in the manner of McEwen without a lead out, sniffing other wheels. And did the same at Milan San Remo. (Mind the Ellingworth/ Sky connection helped on Friday in Bordeaux.)
Today's was extraordinary - just streets ahead of the opposition.
He could probably win it on the Champs for the next five years depending on his motivation.
He was incredible today
But train or not, I still think it would be close between him and Cipollini.
Pardon em moi
What happened to Bradley Wiggins?
One tour wonder
As he was always going to be.
Three things on Wiggo
a) Last year's route suited him with an the opening long, lumpy TT (too long to be called a prologue) in Monte Carlo and team TT a few days later which both fractured the GC. Also, the mountains were shortened to take the GC right down to an iconic fight on Ventoux.
b) Why Sky left proven climber Chris Froome off the roster and yet allowed Flecha to repeatedly attack early on when he was needed later in the mountains was bananas.
c) Vaughters at Garmin can't half find Top 10 GC success - Vande Velde, Wiggins and Hesjedal in three consecutive years shows good management. Especially given the fact he lost Vande Velde and Farrar in this year's race.
Chapeaux Nico Roche for the highest placed Irish and British rider with a fine 15th despite being shafted by his team mate John Gadret after a puncture.
Good to see the Irish bloke winning it.
Albert O'Contador.
Tour highlights: the white Jersey podium presentations
Particularly Laura
http://www.cyclingfans.com/laura_antoine_the_american_podium_girl