Posted on 07/10/2008 5:47:02 AM PDT by green iguana
Tour de France Stage 6
TdF Ping!
Stole the visible part of Baynative’s list and added a few others. Anyone else wants on let me know.
Great to see Valverde and Hincapie up near the front, even if the US only has 3 (4?) riders in the Tour.
About half-way through right now at GIAT. 3 escapees w/ a 5+ min lead over the Peloton.
thanks for picking up the ping list!
the french have found one way to win the tour — disinvite anyh of the contenders and even they have a chance!
I’ll try to keep it yup. Was out of town the last few days and couldn’t, but hopefully will the rest of the way.
If enough people care. Lead rapidly evaporating - down to 3+ min now. Should be totally different by the top of that little Cat 2 climb...
There ought to be a law about dumb spectators getting in the road and taking out riders. That idiot yesterday should have his picture plastered all over Le Monde.
Even tho' they don't list it, Hautacam is another Hors Cat. We should find out who's serious about winning the Tour by then.
Thanks for the updates. Been too busy to catch much so far.
Should be a fun finish today too - last 2/3 mile or so averages 11%.
4km to go or so and Vendevelde has attacked. Has about a 15 sec lead on the peleton. Started the day 37 sec out of the lead.
That didn’t last long. Final km and all together.
She must really be hurting today. They were on the flats and they were moving. Most of the spectators who get hit are on the mountain stages where they crowd the roads are riders are moving slower.
Thanks for this thread, green iguana. Sorry I'm not going to be able to help with the TdF threads much this year...
If you'd like the entire Tour de France ping list (at least as of 2006), go to my FR profile page, and scroll down below the Tour de France photo for the list.
And I believe I heard from Phil and Paul this morning that all the TdF "referees" (I think that was the correct term) are now French, rather than from all over the world, because the TdF organizers had a falling out with the "World Board"? Something like that...
All the officials being French, that can't be a good thing for a non-French rider...
That poor woman... I sure hope she’s OK. :-(
I agree, but what spectator took out a rider yesterday? I must have missed it somehow...
That’s totally what I thought when they disinvited Astana...that they just didn’t want Levi winning the Tour!
Ed
or Contador
I’m pulling for Garmin/chipotle, but I think they have a few years to go to get well established.
It was in the closing 8 or 10 kilometers as the pack was chasing down the break, they were moving about 28 - 30 mph when a rider on the left side of the pack moved toward the shoulder and nailed a woman spectator head on. It looked like he never even had the chance to brake a bit before impact.
They didn't give much info. They showed the rider lying in the road and the woman was sitting up with people tending to her. They she she was doing OK. But she looked a bit heavy and appeared to have gray hair, so I'm betting she didn't feel alright this morning.
Got back in time to see the last six miles.
The two US teams continue to give a good show. Sponsors got some bang for their bucks today.
hiya nutmeg!So good to see you! That was probably about the major falling out which has been unfolding behind the scenes over the last year between the TdF's promoters, the Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), and the UCI (International Cycling Union). Lotsa bad blood being spilt by clashing egos there.
Ostensibly the break was precipatated by the fiasco last year of Rasmussen who'd been cleared to race by the UCI but had obviously not scrupulously complied with pre-race dope testing schedules.
ASO said it wants to restore credibility to the race (ha!) & so it kicked out the UCI's drug testers. This year it will be overseen by the French anti-doping folks, the AFDL, instead of UCI's people.(yeah, like THAT will restore credibility!/sarc)
But as usual there's a lot more to it than that cuz they'd been squabbling for a long time before last year's embarassing situation with Rasmussen. Certainly ASO has been wanting to assert greater control over the TdF & would like to retain a larger share of the race's profits.
And ASO, which is part of a larger conglomerate which also owns the sports paper L'Equipe , has been increasing its financial involvement in cycling outside of France & the UCI suspects it eventually wants to set up its own cycling federation as a competitor to UCI.
So the devil even has commercial sponsors now?(Luk transmissions,lol)
That’s like finding out Santa Claus is working for FedEx!
Sheesh! ;-)
btw, thanks for the ping, bay. green iguana missed my name on the list.
I like Garmin Chipotle, but I live in Oregon, and I’ve always liked and used Columbia Sportswear.
You’re absolutely right about Contador....
I loved the way Rio snuck in, although I wish Valverde had won!
Ed
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