Ah, Bastille Day. After J-Red pointed out that we don’t have a great sports tradition for the Fourth of July, it makes the French tradition of the Tour on Bastille day even cooler. As always, the French riders made a special effort to win the stage on their national holiday.
The race was fun without team radios, creating an overblown controversy where a bunch of teams (not surprisingly, Astana was included, but shockingly the French teams were not) whined about the rule change. It’s only being tried out for two stages this year, and according to a bunch of teams, it’s not that big a deal.
As for the race itself, we saw a late break that never put too much distance on the peloton. It seemed like a really lazy day overall, no one exerted too much effort.
Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador are still sitting exactly where they want to be, just off the lead with a non-contender wearing yellow. They couldn’t have drawn out a better plan for the first week.
Rider of the Day
The rider of the day selection shouldn’t be a surprise today, as Mark Cavendish took another sprint. I’m not sure anyone can beat him on a sprint where he gets a good lead out. I don’t really know what the other sprinters need to do, but at this point he’s making the rest of them look like amateurs.
Reasons I Love the Tour #10 - Bastille Day
I alluded to it earlier, but it’s really nice to see the normally cosmopolitan French turn nationalistic and wave the tricolor proudly. Especially because they’re celebrating a relatively pointless prison break. I love to mock the French, but they always seem to find an extra gear on Bastille day, and sometimes they’re even successful.
4 Responses:
This thing is still going on?
It doesn't end until a week from Sunday. You may be slightly unhappy with the blog for the next week and a half if you aren't digging the TdF posts :)
I meant ECB.
HA! We're still here!
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