OT - Tour de France so far...
This year's Tour promises to be one of the best in memory. Going in there were 4 primary contenders for the GC; Contador, Froome, Nibali, and Quintana. Generally there are 1 or 2 guys who outclass the field and much of the race is a matter of their teams protecting them so they can get on with it in the high mountains and in the time trial(s). This year will be different as attacks from multiple threats can be mounted and will need to be matched or (strategically) ignored. On top of this, the American Teejay Van Garderen looks great so far and his BMC team is performing as well as Froome's Sky Team and Contador's Tinkoff team. Also a young Frenchman, William Barguil and a Columbian, Roberto Uran Uran seem poised to compete in the mountains. I think Froome is the man to beat, but I'm rooting for Teejay.
The sprints competition this year is compressed due to fewer pure sprint stages. IMO this more or less hands the green jersey to Peter Sagan (again), but it also creates several stages that will go to fine sprinters who can also battle some elevation changes. We'll see fewer formulaic rides to the last km followed by a final sprint amongst the same 8 contenders and more interesting road racing over the course of the entire day's stage. Greg Van Avermat, John Degankolb, and Bryan Coquard (as well as Sagan) will be formidable at the expense of Greipel, Kristoff and Cavendish.
I know several on the board watch religiously. If you don't, give it a couple days. It's really outstanding sport and the commentary provided by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin is equivalent to listening to Ernie and Paul in the 70s.
Neat!
And my Charlie Weis thread was deleted
conversation here every year ricky. Of course you wouldn't know that.
oh trust me, if there is one thing I know about it's dope.
Want to talk about child abuse or some shit, bros?
I think he took his ball and went home #livestrong
Testicular cancer jokes FTW!
He was such a great story while he was winning. Too bad it turned out to be due to all the doping.
since everyone else in cycling was doing it too. Our roided up guy beat their roided up guys.
Only three Americans this year is really disapointing.
If Teejay is close to Froome after the TTT then I'll probably start paying attention.
Froome or Teejay in the next two days, I think we can be pretty certain that Teejay will be well within a minute of Froome after the TTT. BMC looks great.
This is the first year in a long time that I haven't paid attention to the classics or Giro. I broke some bones in a race in Austin last Winter and since have soured a bit on bike racing.
Cool about BMC. They usually seem a bit suspect in team time trials.
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You ripped on a non-informative comment with a comment that offers even less. Well done, sir.
The title was appropriate.... You didn't have to click. There is a good TDF discussion here every year - you know - during the offseason before football has started. Cheers and Go Blue.
I remembered these posts in years past and made sure to read this one to get caught up, as I haven't had time to follow the race at all yet. Glad to see Froome isn't necessarily going run away with it, and nice to see Teejay off to a good start!
Looks like Toni Martin is out with a fractured collar bone suffered, in a crash with Nibali, Quintana and Van Garderen, 800m from the finish. I really like him as a rider. Now the race has lost two riders while wearing the Yellow Jersey (Cancellara was the other).
By the way, Van Garderen's first name is spelled with one "e"; Tejay. =)
Was "Toni" intentional? Anyway, I saw Nibali went down, but didn't see Tejay in the crash. Hope they are okay.
I've seen it spelled both ways. I figured that he used the "i", at the end, because he's German and it was spelled like Toni Sailer (the former skiier). Google returns links/images for the same cyclist regardless of spelling (and Google MUST be right.......).
I know there are cheaters in every sport but this sport seems so inflitrated with it, the East Germans of 1982 would be proud. I tried to watch the first 5 minutes of NBC coverage and the very first thing mentioned (literally the first 10 seconds) was about some rider who had low cortisone levels and how his team was under duress and dark clouds.
Then I listened a few more minutes. Apparently there is a voluntary testing program by a voluntary body the teams can be part of. That team under duress was supposedly adhering to that body.... but saw the negative result of the test and apparently just said F it - it's voluntary we are not going to adhere to anything. And away we go.
The scenery is nice and the announcers are cool to listen to but its apparently such a drug induced sport it takes away from someone like me who just likes to watch big events in non traditional sports.
And before the retort I am sure I got something wrong above but the point is not the specifics - the point is every year it's the same perfomance enhancing drugs that usually seem to come to light 8 years later.
But your point is legit. I can't defend cycling as I tend toward keeping Rose, Bonds, and Clemens out of the HOF and while I certainly am in favor of full cost schollies, I'm against paying college football players.
That said, the sport is cleaning itself up as evidenced by the reduced wattage today's riders are able to produce. The method of testing now involves a great deal of baseline analysis. I think this causes the riders to "all dope a little bit".
I just don't know another sport that is so dramatic to watch with such a premium on courage. To each his own I suppose. I can't get into soccer because of the fake injuries.
...is an incentive to use performance enhancing drugs in most sports, and in every case where the governing body has cared to implement a legitimate testing regime widespread abuse has been found. Cycling has the misfortune of being the first major sport where a combination of governmental and sponsorship entitities were serious about testing. And thus the first to be exposed as unanimously crooked. First time offenders are handed a 2 year ban. 2nd offenders get lifetime bans.
Just imagine what might happen if the MLB, NCAA or NFL instituted an anti-doping program with blood passports, out of competittion testing and midnight pee sampling the night before competition. Instead, each of those governing bodies professes to be serious about fairness, while using ineffective controls and testing for drugs which aren't performance enhancing, or no longer even used... and if caught, in an extreme case, they might have to sit out one whole season (A Rod)...
general. I think it's prudent to not legitimize one sport by comparing it to (what's surely happening in) others. Enjoy the race and the spectacle and hope it is becoming both clean and fair.
...and I should clarify that I'm not seeking to legitimize cycling so much as to counter a commonnarrative that would single out cycling and olympic sports for scrutiny and criticism. It seems clear that the biggest reason that they have been punished (and are increasingly improving, maybe?) is that unlike football, soccer, MLB, etc, cycling and olympic sports don't have large commercial interests that would suffer economically from better doping controls and harsher punishments.
It's interesting to watch this mechanic guy go to different riders and assess the damage. I don't even know how many languages this guy can speak.
Sweet!
I heard three languages; English, Spanish and French. That crash was horrendous (I watched it live). I've crashed my road bike a couple of times (once resulting in a broken collar bone). I cannot imagine the pain those riders felt. Hearing the moaning, while the mechanic worked on bike #105, was almost too much. He was very calm and organized. The Orica GreenEdge riders benefitted from that. I was also surprised the distance he had to run to get to the crash scene (at the beginning). I'm guessing that wasn't his first crash.
The Etixx - Quick-Step team site spells it "Tony" so I'll go with that.
Etixx - Quick-Step rider Tony Martin will fly to BG Hospital in Hamburg immediately for surgery, and must withdraw from Le Tour de France. Martin, in the yellow jersey as race leader since a Stage 4 solo victory, was diagnosed with a collarbone fracture on the left side of his body that was suffered during a crash inside the final kilometer of the 6th Stage.
"Unfortunately, the collarbone is a lateral fracture," Team Doctor Helge Riepenhof said. "The collarbone is in lots of pieces, so it was a major impact. One of the pieces came through the skin, which means it's an open fracture. Therefore, even if it was Tony's wish to start tomorrow, I have to say he is not allowed to. Riders always want to race. Tony especially. He's shown in the last years that even with broken bones that he will race if possible. But this is a medical situation where this is impossible. He needs surgery straight away, and that is why we are going to the hospital now. We will fix the collarbone there. He is already on antibiotics. It's a serious injury, and that is why we can't risk anything and why he cannot be at the start tomorrow."
Damn!
"I can't remember exactly what happened," Martin said. "The team put me in a really good position. On the last kilometer no one had the energy left to continue the speed. Everything slowed down, everyone was waiting. Then suddenly I hit the rear wheel of the rider in front of me. I thought I almost could stay upright, but then I went into a rider of Giant-Alpecin and I had no balance anymore. I crashed at relatively low speed, with my full weight on the left shoulder. I felt directly that something was broken. We went to make an X-Ray directly after the finish because i was thinking 'OK, maybe I am wrong. Maybe I can start tomorrow.' But now it is confirmed my clavicle is broken. This has been like a movie, an emotional roller coaster at this Tour. Now I am really sad. The team gave everything to protect the jersey today. We had again the chance to do it and try to keep it a few more days. It's really been a big success up to this point. With Stybar it was such a good moment. It's so strange to be so sad and happy together. I told Stybar to not be sad for me. I told him to enjoy his day, as he deserves it. I am sure the team will keep the morale high. That's the Tour de France. I really wish I could continue, to even just start tomorrow, even if it is broken. I wish I could honor the jersey and show it one last time with a ceremony at the start. I could enjoy it a little more than I have the last days and then stop. But it is now clear I need to go to the hospital for surgery immediately, and my race is over. It's hard to accept. I'd like to keep fighting. But the doctor has the last word, and when he says there is no way to continue I must accept this."
Hope to see him back next year
remi
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Man, gotta feel for the Panzerwagen. Tony is a monster on the bike and its sad to see him lose yellow like that.
I'm pulling for Tejay hard in this one. I know he won't win, but I'll be rooting for him all the way.