Jul 22 2010

Le Tour: Stage 17

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Well, everyone is talking tough–

Schleck– “There’s only one way and that is the climb of the Tourmalet… I always said the guy who has yellow tomorrow will have the yellow in Paris… Tomorrow is definitely the queen stage.”

“What gives me a lot of confidence is that I just feel I haven’t given everything yet, I still haven’t spoken my last word on this Tour.”

Contador– “(This stage will be) very, very hard…  We can have very big gaps in (this) stage, probably more than in the time trial.”

Johan Bruyneel (manager of Armstrong’s Radio Shack team)- “It’s not yet finished… We’re going to try again.”

You have my analysis from yesterday.  The only thing that’s changed is the weather.  It rained hard last night and as we have seen slippery conditions lead to crashes and unexpected results.

Flaming hunks of twisted metal!  Hurray!

I agree that Armstrong put on quite a show, though whether it was really more significant than the equally symbolic 6th French Stage Victory is certainly arguable.

I also agree with Justin Davis that Schleck really didn’t challenge Contador Tuesday, though most of the attention was on what was probably Lance’s last hurrah.  In news I am not covering are the increasingly strident doping accusations of Greg LeMond (I think there’s more than a touch of jealousy in them) and the factoid that the disgraced Floyd Landis was dropped from the Bahati Team in Oregon’s Cascade Classic and is racing solo in an unmarked jersey.

If you’re looking for examples of ‘sportsmanship’ maybe this piece will warm the cockles of your heart, though to me it reads more like- ‘I planned to wait for the last minute all along’.

We’ll see.

rustymancuso581

6 comments

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  2. Flaming hunks.

  3. Idiot commentator is riding without a brain box.

    Oh, he brought his and gave it to his partner who didn’t.

    Well, I know who’s getting the ticket.

  4. tomorrow’s start of coverage is 8:30 am.

    Good for 2 reasons- not likely to be that interesting and I get to nap.

  5. Duking it out in the fog.

  6. Schleck stage win, maybe 1 or 2 seconds on Contador.

    So there you go.

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