Posted on 07/15/2006 9:05:00 PM PDT by nutmeg
PLA-DE-BERET, Spain -- For seven consecutive Julys, George Hincapie faithfully toiled for the greater good of Lance Armstrong's seven consecutive Tour de France victories.
With Armstrong enjoying retirement, the 33-year-old New Yorker dreamed of stepping out of the Texan's shadow to become America's next breakout star by making his own run at a Tour victory.
Those dreams dissolved Thursday in the five-climb, 128-mile 11th stage across the Pyrenees as a dejected Hincapie rolled across the line 46th at more than 20 minutes off the winning pace.
While fellow American Floyd Landis was already being anointed as Armstrong's heir apparent as the Tour's new race leader, Hincapie's name was being erased from the contender's list.
"The general classification is over for me now," said Hincapie after his disastrous Stage 11 outing, dropping out of contention to 40th overall and 23:01 behind Landis. "I've been working hard to improve, but it's just not coming together for me. It's disappointing."
The 93rd Tour started out fabulously for Hincapie, an affable, hard-working son of Colombian immigrant parents who married one of the Tour's pretty podium girls.
As the only teammate to be a part of all seven of Armstrong's record seven Tour wins, Hincapie won a breakout mountain stage in the Pyrenees last year and gave his candidacy as Armstrong's heir some real credibility.
A strong all-rounder who can climb and time trial, Hincapie missed a win in the opening prologue in Strasbourg on July 1 by less than a second.
He showed grace under pressure the next day to grab the race lead with time bonuses to become just the fourth American to don the Tour's prestigious maillot jaune.
"What I did with Lance, I wouldn't pass up for anything," Hincapie said during his one-day run in yellow...
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
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A good one - Normandy a memory years cannot erase
Oh my goodness... thanks so much for that link. I will have to go back and read all of Bonnie DeSimone's articles.
Her experience Colleville-sur-Mer sounds the same as ours back in 1995. It is impossible to leave the American Cemetery without red eyes...
My husband and I also visited the D-Day Museum nearby and Pointe-Du-Hoc. Geesh, it's been 11 years... time for a return visit soon, I hope.
Speaking of bunkers... we were checking out one of the bunkers above Omaha & met 2 Rangers who had taken out that particular bunker some 60 years ago, when who should walk up but 2 German soldiers who had manned that bunker, and escaped just prior to it being blown. Not a dry eye in the immediate vicinity when the 4 men met, shook hands, then hugged! All the men had family with them, down to great-grand kids, so we were able to see 'the potential' that DeSimone wrote so eloquently about in that article.
I found the French people in Normandy to be the most friendly and welcoming that we encountered in France. There were several people that went out of their way to express their gratitude to the Allied Troops for freeing them from German rule.
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