Le. Tour. De. France.
Well, let’s chat a little about what happened.
Just as Schleck was about to put a move on Contador at the top of yesterday’s big climb (gaining perhaps as much as a minute and maybe more in the downhill) his chain slipped and by the time he was able to continue he was almost 2 minutes behind on the stage.
After resuming the race Schleck made up practically all of that deficit, but he did slip to 2nd in the General Classification and is now 8 seconds behind Contador with 2 mountain stages to go and with Contador presumed to have as much as a 2 minute advantage in Saturday’s penultimate sprint.
I think I’ll give a pass on Contador’s sportsmanship. Frankly I’m not all that comfortable with ‘unwritten rules’ and I think they move your sport’s credibility from the ‘Olympian Ideal’ side of the scale to ‘Professional Wrestling’/’Figure Skating Political Kabuki’ just as surely as steroids.
As an athelete your duty is to try as hard as you can to win within the rules all the time, every time.
Anything else is cheating yourself and your fans.
I don’t think things are as grim for Schleck as they might be. It’s only 8 seconds. There are 2 more mountain stages including today. There is a recovery day tomorrow. I don’t think Contador is really 2 minutes faster over 34 miles (that’s actually quite a bit of time given the distance).
But there certainly isn’t much margin for error and none at all for slacking and what we have seen so far in the mountains is that Saxo Bank (Schleck) is not the team Astana (Contador) is.
Today’s 124 mile stage from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Pau has 2 category 1 and 2 Kute Kuddly Kitty Kat Klimbs and a long high speed descent into the finish. It should be possible to generate huge deltas off the last peak depending on conditions and competition.
We’ll see what happens.
6 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
Armstrong is in a breakaway….. can the old horse pull something out?
when I heard Armstrong’s name, I started watching more intently. The scenery is gorgeous and what a beautiful day
one of these younger guys will have more in the legs than either Lance or Moreau who is 39 but I am still cheering for the old dudes.
http://www.boston.com/bigpictu…
I put it on the older thread too by mistake!