OT - Tour de France, Stage 21
As tradition dictates that no GC contender may attack today, barring a crash, case of food poisoning or something else unforeseen, Cadel Evans (who does have a history of bad luck in grand tours) will finally win the Tour after numerous close calls in the past, giving Australia its first TdF win ever.
For the sprinters, though, it's game on. The Champs-Elysées is prime sprinting territory. Mark Cavendish is almost certain to win green, but will he win the stage? Will Gilbert or Hushovd give it a shot?
And of course, there is the ceremony following the stage. If Cavendish is indeed on the podium, will fans grumble that it's undeserved, given his consecutive finishes outside the time limit in the Alps? (IMO, the current rule - a points deduction when 20+% of the riders don't finish in time - is fine, but perhaps it should only apply the first time. If a rider is again outside the limit, maybe he should be disqualified, period.)
Any/all thoughts on the Tour and its dramatic conclusion can go here.
Of course Cav will take the stage. Just like every year, a breakaway will form in the first one or two laps around the Champs-Elysees, only to be realed in sometime in the second to last lap. After that, it is all about Team
Of course Cav will take the stage. Just like every year, a breakaway will form in the first one or two laps around the Champs-Elysees, only to be realed in sometime in the second to last lap. After that, it is all about Team HTC as they will set up the train coming around the final curve for Cav.
As for your time limit comment, it wouldn't have been just Cav DQ'd this year, but somewhere around 60 riders didnt make the cut on both the final mountain stages. This would have forced teams to withdraw, as I am fairly certain you must have at least 5 of your team to continue.
And congrats to Cadel, who most certainly deserved the yellow this year.
I don't mean to single Cavendish out. He and many other riders took advantage of a loophole in the rules.
I just don't care in general for the idea that on a difficult mountain stage, the sprinters can just collectively decide to mail it in and finish beyond the limit if they can make sure 20% of the riders join in. The 20% rule is not supposed to be an excuse for non-climbers to take it easy. On one of the Alpine stages, only 50-60 riders finished within the limit. That was getting ridiculous. The point penalty only affects those going for the green jersey, and if all the sprinters are equally penalized 20 points, then it's effectively meaningless. That should only be applied once. After that, they should have to finish in time or be DQ'd. If the sprinters have to work a little harder on the mountains (and thus become more well-rounded cyclists), so be it.
The sprinters have had to drag themselves over the mountains in a respectable time for a hundred years - there's no reason this crop can't do the same.
ever tried to win on the final stage? Like if the second place guy was less than a minute back or something?
Voeckler. That's unfortunate, he rode a great race.
To argue for Cavendish's side of it, both times he finished barely outside of the time limit. If i remember right, one of the stage cut off times was 25:00 and he came in with what seemed to be 100 other riders, and they all came in at 25:15. I feel like when they are so close to the cut off time, it shouldn't be a big deal or anything. People can't really say sprinters were shutting it down because shutting it down would've meant going easy, and to come in within 25 minutes of Andy Schleck who is hammering it does not mean shutting it down.
To be clear, I don't mean this as a knock on Cavendish or anything he did in particular. I just dislike that rule in general. It opens up the possibility of a group of sprinters deciding to shut it down. If they did state that riders could only finish outside the time limit once per Tour, we might get a little added drama in the some of the mountain stages as they'd have to push it to make sure they finish in time.
Live streaming online my friend. www.steephill.tv will have links to every race. Sometimes it's not english, but I think that makes it more fun.
Don't forgot the San Sebastian Classic, Tour of Poland, and Eneco Tour. They all happen before the Vuelta. Still plenty of great racing left this year.
I will be very happy- I have a trainer set up in front of the TV, DVR the stage (to skip commercials) and I "ride along," so to speak. It's freakin' 110 degrees where I am, I will go back outside this fall....
It looks like VS will televise it this yar....Aug 20 here we come!
It will be on Universal Sports.
Anyone else surprised that Cadel isn't wearing a full yellow kit? Seems odd that all he has is a the yellow jersey w/o the yellow helmet, gloves, bike, shoes, etc.
Stylistic choice or did he not have the confidence to pack one?
Either way congrats to the man!
Professional cyclists are extremely superstitious, so there is no way Cadel would have had the yellow gear made for him. It's all upon the team and sponsors to make the yellow accented bits. He was riding a yellow bike earlier, but he changed it back to his usual bike. Also, Cadel is kind of an old school pro, so it wouldn't surprise me if he conciously chose not to wear 100% yellow.
Good on him, then. I'm glad he had the yellow bike even if for a few miles.
I'm really disappointed with Dario. I always race him clean, but he always races me dirty.
Who is so dirty, he's not even good at doping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dario_Frigo
Then, scroll down the following page a little for a story suggesting that his name should be "Dupio"
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2002/giro02/?id=news/may24news
(yes, yes, I know you were talking about the auto racing commercial).
Bonus money accrued per team in the Tour this year:
BMC Racing : €493,990
Leopard Trek : €395,310
Europcar : €147,310
Garmin-Cervélo : €145,940
HTC-Highroad : €104,940
Omega Pharma - Lotto : €96,600
FDJ : €90,660
Euskaltel : €87,780
Saxo Bank : €72,290
Sky : €67,000
Movistar : €46,660
AG2R - La Mondiale : €45,560
Cofidis : €41,740
Vacansoleil : €35,650
Lampre : €30,100
Saur - Sojasun : €26,930
Rabobank : €24,290
Liquigas : €22,360
Quick Step : €19,940
Katusha : €12,380
Astana : €11,710
RadioShack : €10,540
The only big surprise in the top five has to be Europcar, which cleaned up pretty nicely given its small budget. FDJ also wasn't bad considering it didn't win any stages or have any serious GC contenders (they did have Roy win the Combativity Award). Omega was higher than I'd thought.
Not the greatest performance from Saxo Bank. They need to get Contador a little more help. At the bottom, Astana and RadioShack obviously paid the price for all the crashes.