Ja-Ja is definitely going for the Polka-dot jersey in his last ever TdF. He is even using the same strategy which won him the jersey last year. Watch for Ja-ja to repeat this tactic a few times.
Richard V. said he was going after the jersey as well- but off of the juice and against his fellow frenchman Jalabert I don’t think he has a chance.
Heras might have shown us who Lance’s eventual sucessor might be.
Oh, and “Go Lance Go!”
Good observation. Lance had to leave Heras behind, he had no more energy left to take the victory, and Belloki sure as hell wasn’t gonna get it. Good show.
The Tour can be harsh and gruesome. Karsten Kroon, who took the day’s victory just days ago (in a 1-2-3 Dutch finish, he dedicated the victory to the 26 year old girlfriend of his best friend, that girl having died two days prior to a heart attack), suffered a lot today. Allow me to translate from a Dutch cycling website:
I saw him on TV, and lemme tell you, he was being euphemistic about his injuries. A 20 centimeter open wound across his right thigh, 2 centimeters deep. His elbow all bloody and swollen to twice the size.
After investigation in the hospital, his wrist was ruled to be not broken, but not by much.
Tomorrow morning, the team decides if he will start.
What a week for that kid! :eek:
Karsten Kroon today earned the title of “Toughest SOB in the Peloton”. There oughta be a jersey for that. His team and nation should be bursting with pride right about now.
BTW: If you wish to follow a particular rider, you can likely find their website (if any) here.
Good Lord! I’ve been at work all day and hadn’t had a chance to read about everything that has happened today, so I’ve completely missed hearing about Karsten Koom. He is indeed a tough bastard, and he’s lucky he didn’t bleed to death while finishing out the stage.
I’ve always worried that a rider might take a tumble and get squashed by an unobservant team car driver. I guess the drivers must be excellent at what they do, because this is the first cyclist/driver accident I’ve heard of.
Damnit.
Oh well.
Jalabert was kicking ass.
P.S. How old is Heras? Is he coming into his prime or is he in it now? Too bad he couldn’t take the stage.
I can still hope that ONCE wins the team ratings. I hadn’t heard yet about Kroon, but that’s too bad. Oh, and that sucks about Vaughters. How bad was he hurt? I mean, if he wasn’t positive that he was cursed, is there a chance that he could have at least held on to finish the Tour? Or was he knocked up pretty badly?
Pugluvr, I’m pretty sure that cyclist/team car driver accidents are pretty common. A 7 year old was killed a few days ago by a press car.
Hopefully, the mountain stages will help thin out some of the peloton and reduce the number of crashes as well as fatalities, both on the course and bystanders.
Oh, it happens all the time, but usually at low speeds, when things congest on a slope, for example. Remember how the motorbikes got stuck in that mountain course in Luxemburg? That sort of thing.
Just look at how fast the team cars and camera bikes pass the riders sometimes. It has to go wrong a lot. The motorbikes can usually veer if a rider breaks left or right (let’s face it, in the Tour, riders have the right of way), but cars sometimes can’t.
Sadly, a car in the commercial campaign hit and killed a 7 year old boy yesterday. Story here. Sadly, that wasn’t the first time either.
I think that Lance’s one ball is an advantage over the other’s two.
Whoa, Coldie, didn’t hear about Kroon 'til your post. That’s brutal, and yeah, he’d get my vote for tough SOB. As for Heras, IIRC, he’s in his late twenties. I would think he’d be LA’s heir apparent, but IMO, LA’s got two more TdFs to go before giving up the throne.
Any truth to the rumor that next year it’s going to be called the Tour de Lance?
I admire those guys. I once rode about 53 miles, and my crotch took three days to heal.
That’s why God made 87 Octane gasoline.
Well, today’s stage win was almost a repeat of yesterday’s: Armstrong, Heras and Beloki. Lance went ahead earlier on, with Heras acting as the “carrot”, as the announcer said, between Lance and Beloki. I’m still learning cycling strategies. What did he mean?
Armstrong says he’s not a hill man. Well, when you lead everybody else up a mountain and everyone else is fading back, in my book, that’s a hill man.
No, not really… I mean yes, he’s good on the hills, but Jalabert, fer example, is probably better, and Heras is almost as good. What Lance is, is really damn good at everything, but best of all in pacing and strategy. Today, Jalabert took the lead over most hills, with Team Postal leading the peloton, with as much as 5:10 seperating the lead from the peloton. Team Postal hung together, wore-out the other riders, allowed some more aggressive riders to make attacks that wasted their strength, and husbanded their strenth 'till the last climb. By then, Jalabert had nothing left, Heras acted as ‘rabit’ to goad other leading rriders to wear themselves out chasing him (psychological as much as tactics), and then Lance, still fairly strong and rested, slung up from a behind him into first. By then, Jalabert was fading fast, and Heras had used all his ‘oomph’. Beloki was hanging grimly on, and the stage finished One-Two for the Blue, Lance showing once again that patience and preparation wins the day.
Oh, and Fabio Casartelli would’ve been proud of his teammate today. Talk about winning one for the Gipper!
Good point Tranquilis!
After I heard that today’s stage was going by the monument to Fabio Casartelli I knew there was 0.00% chance that Lance would not win today.
Allez Lance !
In other interesting notes, Karsten Kroon did, in fact, start, and finished as well.
Dat’s one tough Dutchman!
“Team Postal?” Why doesn’t that sound all that reassuring?
I like “the blue train” name they have been using in the various TdF coverages lately. Bet it sounds even cooler in French. Everything sounds better in French. . . .
Like maybe:
Le Train Bleu a tiré dans la station, Un-Deux…?
(The Blue Train pulled into the station, One-Two.)
Indeed, that surprised me too. If that kid reaches Paris, he’ll probably be sportsman of the year in the Netherlands. Talk about character.
My gripe isn’t about Armstrong per se or bike racing per se - he’s obviously a great athlete and if people in Europe like to watch bike races that’s ok by me. My problem is with the morons at the US Postal Service who raise the rates for stamps while wasting money sponsoring a bike racing team that’s competing in sodding France. Apparently it has escaped the attention of the marketing geniuses at the USPS that not many people in France actually avail themselves of the American postal system; better the postal service should spend its limited advertising budget here at home where it might do some good, on a NASCAR driver or someone playing on the American PGA Tour or on the University of Akron football team, instead of wasting it on a professional bike race team in France.
(See, Akron’s team nickname is the Zips, and the USPS used to have a mascot promoting zip codes called Mr. Zip. It’s a natural I tell you, a natural!)