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Tour de France

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To be fair each stage is a good 150km+. That's a good days work in anyones language. Cracking performance by Cavendish to win again today. If he wins a gold in Beijing as well then he deserves superstar status.
 
Just checked that wiki link and I'm quite surprised at the number of deaths in this race.

they should rename the event to Tour De Deathrace. :lol:
 
It's a grueling race, which is why I love it. I can't remember who said it, got a feeling it was Jacques Anquetil although I'm not sure, but the basic gist was when asked if he doped he replied, "only when I need to", to which the hack replied, "how often do you need to?". "All the time" was the legendary reply.

The original Tour was created almost as a death race, as it was intended to be so tough that only one rider would finish, thus being crowned champion. Considering in those days they had crappy old bikes, no support cars (they had to carry spare tubes etc. with them!) it was quite an achievement to even get around.

That's the beauty of the sport though. The pain and suffering they go through every day reveals the true character of the men. Few sports do that. For me Marco Pantani epitomises it, a true tortured genius, but watching him fly up the Galibier in the rain and fog back in 1998 remains the single greatest thing I've ever seen in sport.
 
Cracking ride from Carlos Sastre up Alp d'Huez today. Gives him a 1 minute 34 second lead over Evans, will that be enough for the win?!

Poised very nicely for the TT on Saturday (y)
 

This has probably been the tightest Tour for years. Great stuff. It was a super ride by Sastre yesterday and some great work by the CSC team as a whole. I can't help but think with such a strong team though they should have earnt a bit bigger lead going into the time trial as Evans has practically been on his own.
 
Yup, so much for my prediction of Cadel not being able to blame his team! They were pretty awful in the hilly stuff, with the exception of Popovich, who got in a breakaway in one Alp stage and therefore didn't help Evans anyway!

CSC were a class act though, so many quality riders. Cancellera, O'Grady and Voigt doing some sterling work, along with the Schleck brothers. I think Andy will go on to be a big star, if he can improve his TT he will win the Tour eventually. By far the best team this year and when push came to shove Sastre could deliver as well. Will be interesting next year with the return of Contador.... (y)
 
Yep, Astana have the team to challenge CSC for sure. Surprised Evans stayed with his team if he knew they were so weak. Popo was a big letdown considering how well he did for Contador last year.
 

Bruce Wayne said:
It's a grueling race, which is why I love it. I can't remember who said it, got a feeling it was Jacques Anquetil[/COLOR][/URL] although I'm not sure, but the basic gist was when asked if he doped he replied, "only when I need to", to which the hack replied, "how often do you need to?". "All the time" was the legendary reply.

The original Tour was created almost as a death race, as it was intended to be so tough that only one rider would finish, thus being crowned champion. Considering in those days they had crappy old bikes, no support cars (they had to carry spare tubes etc. with them!) it was quite an achievement to even get around.

That's the beauty of the sport though. The pain and suffering they go through every day reveals the true character of the men. Few sports do that. For me Marco Pantani epitomises it, a true tortured genius, but watching him fly up the Galibier in the rain and fog back in 1998 remains the single greatest thing I've ever seen in sport.
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Funny enough the greatest thing i've seen in sport was in the tour. When Pedro Delgado got away on Alpe d' Huez ( i think) he would have taken the yellow jersey off Stephen Roche and probably would then have won the full tour. Unbeknownst to the comentators etc roche had come after him Delgado had crossed the line first with everyone anxious to see how much of a lead he was going to build over Roche and whether he had done enough to get the yellow jersey. Unfortunately for him and to the utmost surprise of the waiting crowd and the commenatators Roche came around the corner 6 seconds later. crossed the line and subsequently collapsed. He was back on his bike the next day though and stayed in yellow until it finished absolutely superb.
 
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