Le Tour De France

[Atlaua]

Running a close second to my love of diving is my love of the tour. I follow this race religously. For those who didn't see today's first stage, my personal hero and IMHO the greatest athelete of all time, decimated his rivals today.

Lance, possibly intentionally as it is not in his best interest to start defending the yellow jersey this early in the tour, finished second in the individual time trial event to another American. He conceded 2 seconds to the winner who is not a threat for the overall win.

What he did do was put himself well ahead of the real rivals:

Alexandre Vinokourov 51 seconds
Floyd Landis (former teammate) 1 minute
Andreas Kloden 1 minute 59 seconds
Ivan Basso (IMHO the biggest threat) 1 minute 24 seconds

And finally, he actually passed Jan Ullrich, who is an excellent time trialist and has finished 2nd to Lance in a number of tours, gaining 1 minute and 6 seconds.

Lance has won 6 consecutive tours, more than any other rider (consecutive or not). A win this year will cement the record as well as making him the only person with 5+ wins to retire on a win.

Go Lance!

[decodiva]

Not only has he surpassed his personal quest-- He has over come a horrible cancer scare and he does so much good for cancer research-- He donates time adn money and that makes him a great man----------------------------- I dont follow the race but I do think Lance is a great hero!!!

[nauifins73]

Thanks for the update James, please keep them coming - so much more concise than on the news if I could find it

[Atlaua]

Well today is the team time trial. Because of a rule change this year (one that could only be aimed at limiting the American domination) the most the winning team can gain is 3 minutes over the slowest team with the times in between based on position.

Still Discovery only needs 2 seconds on CSC to put Lance in the yellow and the maximum loss between first an second is 20 seconds. I'll post the outcome.

James

[Atlaua]

What an exciting day. The team time trial had 3 split times. Team CSC is the team of Dave Zabriskie, the Utah native who started the day leading the tour by 2 seconds over Lance Armtrong. Team Discovery is Lance's team.

At 25k, CSC led discovery by 6 seconds. At 45.8k, the lead remained 6 second. The latter, hilly part, is where Discovery made their move. At 61.5k they had cut CSC's lead down to 2 seconds. This is where things get exciting:

Discovery crosses the finish line at 1:10:39, a whoping 35 seconds ahead of T-Mobile (Jan Ullrich's team), leaving only CSC on the course. With less than 2k left, Dave Zabriskie crashed and was left behind by his team.

Why was he left behind? The fastest a team can score is the time of the 5th of 9 riders across the line in a team time trial. In spite of the fact that he was currently leading, Ivan Basso is their actual pick for an attempt at a final win. They had to continue and get Basso across the line.

Their final time, which wouldn't have been effected by the crash (other than mentally) was 2 seconds behind team Discovery!

Dave Zabriskie will get his actual time, not the team time. He limped across, bloodied, 1:28 behind Lance. Had he stayed with his team, Lance would still be in yellow, even though they tied because he won the stage. Would they have been faster without the mental handicap? Who knows. I know Lance would rather not have wound up in yellow this way.

George Hincape (Lance's teammate) is second in the overall at 55 seconds behind Lance. Zabriskie remains in the top 10 keeping 4 Americans in the top 10.

James

[Atlaua]

Additionally Popovych Yaroslav of Team Discovery has captured the white jersey, which goes to the person 25 yers or younger with the fastest overall time.

[DeepDiverBob]

seems to me to be like tennis, golf or poker...fun to do, but for me personally, doesnt make for good TV.

[Atlaua]

seems to me to be like tennis, golf or poker...fun to do, but for me personally, doesnt make for good TV.

We all have our own passions, otherwise how do things like poker get on TV? I enjoy tennis. As for golf, I only really pay attention to the Masters, probably because I'm from Georgia. The ones I truely don't understand are auto racing, bowling, and ........... FISHING!

I'm still waiting for the "watching the grass grow" channel :D.

Anyway, back to the tour. For me it is such good TV that I listen to it live on the internet, watch it on OLN when I get home from work and then re-watch the "expanded coverage" that evening. Like I said we all have our passions and this is mine.

My latest update is that there isn't much to update on. While the last few days have been very exciting, and very heartbreaking, with sprints and crashes, and hard escape efforts crushed by both of the above. As far as our favorite patriot is concerned Not much to tell.

However, as today's stage winner said, it's time for the sprinter's to go on holiday. It's time to head into the mountains. Tomorrows stage is a "foothill" stage, or a taste of things to come. Sunday we hit the real rocks!

The dangerous high speed sprinting is behind for now, time to see what Lance can do!

Matt, pay attention. Lance was not expeced to survive his cancer and now he is attempting to add an exclamation point to his record setting career. Just as you are well on your way to attaining that "supposedly" impossible goal.

James

[Atlaua]

Ok, I've missed a couple of days so here is a recap:

Saturday, foothill stage. Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark went out ahead on this stage because he wants the King of the Mountains prise this year and this was a lead in stage to the mountains with some decent points for this competition. He too 3rd place on the last climb and took #1 on the rest of them. The peleton caught up but Lance lost 27 seconds to the two leaders sprinting out for the finish. Lance's team did not have a good day and he was left alone on the final climb to fend off several attacks from several teams.

Sunday, first real climbs. Before the stage Lance basicly says he plans to give up the Yellow today and focus on getting his team's confidence back after the poor performance on Saturday. He does exactly that. Again Mickael Rasmussen took off riding a great deal of the stage solo and taking every top climb point. An incredible ride and he held out this time for the stage win. 3:04 in front of Christope Moreau and Jens Voigt. 6:04 in front of the peleton and Lance. Lance played his strategy well, both giving up the jersey and allowing his team to set the pace in the peleton. At the end of the day:

1. Jens Voigt
2. Christophe Moreau +1:50
3. Lance Armstrong +2:18

The strategy was fantastic as you will soon see.

Today, after a Monday rest, we left behind the Black Forrest to head to the real mountains, the Alps. With 2 monster category 1 climbs, Team Discovery dominated the day and decimated Lances main rivals! Lance didn't win the stage, that honor went to Alejandro Valverde, but his second place got him the exact same time. 2 riders, including Rasmussen finished 9 seconds behind but Lance's main rivals all lost over a minute, Ullrich 2:14, Vinokourov 5:18! They could not match the pace set by Team Disovery.

That puts Lance back in yellow. Only Rasmussen is close with :38 number three is Ivan Basso at 2:40.

James

[Atlaua]

Well, I know I haven't reported in a week. I've been lax, but it must be said, that as of my last report, Lance had already won the race.

It's been two very exciting days. Yesterday's final time trial and today's finish were both full of excitement. Expect a full report tomorrow, because, well, I've been in a pool all day, it's 102 and no AC in the pool building. I'm tired, and I just finished the seeing the race since I was unable to see it live.

James

[theskull]

I was rooting for Lance as well. Cycling is my second favorite sport. I'm also glad to see him retire, wanted him to go out as a winner, and it will be good to not KNOW who is going to win the Tour next year.

theskull

[Atlaua]

Like I said, I'll post a recap in the morning, But, I'd like to post this link. This is from the official TDF website. I cannot think of a more glowing tribute than to see these kinds of things said from a French site about an American rider:

http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/2100/index.html

Some quotes:

Pure determination powered by a phenomenal physique, directed by a master tactician and support from teams of heroes all contributed to the re-writing of cycling history.

His career cannot be summarized in a post-race report or a series of clichés. There’s much more to Lance Armstrong that victories in the Tour de France alone. But after today there’s plenty of time to analyze the impact he’s had on his chosen sport and the hordes of fans who confess that he’s their hero.

[decodiva]

wtg Lance-- anyway there was a great peice done on him last night in cnn and it was rather interesting ---- it was about his internal organs and how they play a role in making him so dominating.