So the Tour de France is complete and there are lots to talk about. The good, the bad, the crashes, headbutting, fistfights, chaingate, and jerseygate. It was a great race. I’ll sum up my comments here:
Prudhomme and the other organizers almost screwed up this Tour, and should be grovelling at the rider’s feet, thanking them for correcting their mistakes. It sucks to see a guy like Hushovd work 5x harder than Cavendish and Petacchi for the Green jersey, but loose it like he did. Renshaw shouldn’t have been kicked out for what he did, but he’s an idiot for thinking things were going to be ok. The king of the mountains jersey was won by a midget. Canadian news (which is indicative of many mass market news organizations) disgusts me. The UCI needs to take a step back and reevaluate many, many of their practices or it will bite them in the ass. And finally, Contador should sleep knowing that this win wasn’t really his.
The Organizers Should Be Punished
Prudhomme is obviously hitting the French media market talking up the huge success this year’s Tour was. He’s probably gloating in his achievement, but he shouldn’t be. This year’s tour was spectacular only because of one group of people: the riders. That sounds odd, right? Isn’t it always the riders that make the Tour so special. One can argue that, but the organizers could put together a course that heavily favors one group and would make for boring television. Remember how boring the NBA finals were when the best team in the East was probably only the 4 or 5 best team in the NBA, behind all West teams? Cycling, like other sports, are entertainment markets. This year’s Tour was full of people that could have really caused some heartache in the top 5 placings. Contador, Shleck, Menchov, Sanchez, Van Den Broeck, Armstrong, Basso, Evans, Sastre, Roche, Wiggins, Leipheimer, Kloden, and Vinokourov. All these guys had the capability to podium in this years Tour. As an organizer, you should make a challenging and course but make it so that all (baring any unplanned things, sickness, bad form, or random crazy crashes or mechanical incidents) have a chance to contend. Instead, Prudhomme kicked off the Tour with a cobbled filled course that basically eliminated many contenders, crashed out many riders, and pissed off more people than I can count. This AFTER a horrible stage with a rainy descent that all the riders expressed was to dangerous to be in the Tour. Schleck, Contador, Menchov, and Sanchez made it a race, but Prudhomme’s arrogance made me wish of things that could have been. These guys shouldn’t get off scott-free for the danger they put the riders in and the financial trouble they almost put the Tour investors in. More on their “punishment” (if you can call it that) later.
Poor, Poor Hushovd
I was pulling for you Thor…I really was. In the Sprinter’s jersey (green) classification there are point for stage wins and points out on the road. Petacchi and Cavendish only fought for stage wins, where Hushovd fought for stage wins AND intermediate points. I really felt he deserved the win, although you could tell towards the end of the race he wasn’t in the kind of form he was earlier on. It’s really upsetting that he had to take the hit when they neutralized stage 2 because only he and McEwen were the only ones that could have really fought for the points behind the breakaway stage winner. Worst case, assuming McEwen took 2nd place and Hushovd took 3rd (which is unlikely because McEwen was injured) and all other points remained, he would have been 1 point behind Petacchi but being that close can give you the extra bump Thor needed to grab a few more in his lower placed finishes. Second place would have him 1 point up on Petacchi. Thor fought, it makes me sad he finished third. (By the way, when McEwen retires, Versus should immediately offer him tons of money as a commentator…the man is awesome!)
Headbutting, Fist fighting, Ejections, Oh My!
Renshaw, Mark Cavendish’s leadout man, was ejected from the tour after head-butting Dean and breaking his line into Farrar. Couple things to note here. Dean did move into Renshaw, pushing him over. Instead of Renshaw holding his line which would in turn push Dean back, he headbutted him in the shoulder to stop the movement. Then after letting Cavendish go, Renshaw broke left blocking Farrar’s way to the line, almost forcing Farrar into the barrier. In my opinion the second part is more egregious than the first. As a leadout man, he know that after he’s done, he rides in a straight line as people pass all around him. Farrar could have seriously been hurt with his move left. So the two together makes the punishment have to be more than simply fined and relegated to the back of the field. BUT! After the stage 6 fist-fight between Barredo and Costa, and the ASO reporter walking right in front of McEwen all these sprinter should have been on edge and their best behavior. Most people thought Barredo should have been kicked out, and since he wasn’t, the officials were looking for a way to save face. Here came Renshaw and now all is better, right? Nope, but again Renshaw should have been on his best behavior. Riders were on edge, the ejection shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Charteau, Short-teau
Did you see how short Anthony Charteau is? He has to be classified as a midget in some areas. Look at this video, the woman on the left had to bend down for the kisses. She’s on the shorter podium step! I guess that’s why he’s a great climber, he doesn’t have a whole lot of himself to carry up the mountains.
Hesjedal Is Getting Screw By His Home Country
Hesjedal, a Canadian cyclist for Garmin-Transitions, had the ride of his life. He finished 7th overall in one of the best showings for a Canadian ever. I follow cycling news outlets all over the world (English ones at least) and Canada’s media outlets said next to nothing about Hesjedal’s ride. He was in the top 10 for a long time, yet you barely heard a blip. Now finally as the Tour has ended, Hesjedal is getting news coverage. This guy could have rode with the country behind him and instead has to settle for the Johnny-Come-Lately News….disgusting.
The UCI is close to being bitten…
The UCI has done much for the sport of cycling, but as with any large governing body, it’s been infiltrated with lobbyists and politicians that have forgotten the people that has actually brought the sport to where it is. The riders, and that’s the good and the bad. If you followed Jerseygate, where Team RadioShack chose to change jerseys into ones in support of 28 million people suffering from cancer and were threatened to be kicked out of the Tour, then you know one of the things I’m talking about. The UCI is full of people that inconsistently enforce rules among other items that routinely piss-off the cyclists. With Jerseygate, the rules do say you aren’t allowed to change your kit once the race has started, yet there is precedence with this when an Italian cyclist (his name is alluding me right now) often wore unapproved kits and was never kicked out, but was fined heftily. I’m sure Armstrong would have happily paid all the fines out of his pocket to help the message, but NO the UCI threatened to kick the team out of the Tour. Race radios, the lack of cycling technology acceptance, allowing dangerous routes are among the few things pissing off cyclists today. Not to mention fans like me are getting tired of hearing about past dopers. The UCI should take a lesson from American baseball. The longer you let this linger the more you will alienate fans. Just stop and say, “Listen, riders doped for the past few years. We caught and punished the ones we know about, we’ve changed our practices to catch new dopers…but there will be no more investigations into previous dopers. That time is past, let’s look to the future.” I would be so happy with that, time to dust yourself off and move forward. I’m not a fan of standing unions, I think they have a time and a place and should be dissolved. But if the UCI keeps taking advantage of the cyclists the way they are doing, a cyclist union does not sound to far off. I don’t like the idea of a cyclist strike, but slow riding through multiple stages of major races would upset many investors into these major races. This would in turn push the money men hard on the UCI to change things. The riders need official representation in many of the decisions that are coming down the pipe, or else the UCI will be bitten.
39 Seconds and 1 Mechanical
There’s no rule that says you shouldn’t attack when someone has a mechanical problem. Can you really say you were the better rider when all the time you gained over your opponent was because of a malfunction and not talent. Problems happen, tires (or tyres) blow out, chains slip, brakes catch…and in general this is part of cycling. But it’s professional courtesy and ethical to not take advantage of these malfunctions. It’s an unwritten rule of the road to not attack when the Yellow jersey has a problem, it’s bad form and you’re asking for trouble up the road. If Contador would have won by anything more than 39 seconds, this whole conversation would be mute…but he didn’t. And Schleck would have most likely ridden last in the time trial, which could have made the difference. Contador knows this and no after-the-fact apology changes that this was his “doping” win. I say this because Contador should know that he wouldn’t have won this race if it wasn’t for his lapse in judgment (which is what you could call doping, a lapse in judgment). I know this may not be the popular opinion, and I could get flamed for it, but it’s true. Schleck was the strongest rider this year, stronger than Contador, but he’d better not hope that someone else will wait for him when he has trouble.
Things have been good. Really good. When I look at my weight loss progress and compare it to other people’s weight loss progress, I’ve done really well. I don’t mean to be arrogant, but the fact remains that I’ve read numerous people’s weight loss troubles and have been extremely blessed in that I’ve consistently lost weight week-to-week. I didn’t have to write those post doldrums about how I ate so much pizza that I gained a few pounds and that I’d do better next week.
RSS
Archive
Mobile
