Caramba!

Tour de France Review: Prologue to Stage 6 July 14, 2007

It has been crazy in the office the past week so I wasn’t able to closely follow the Tour! I’ve been relying on the headlines of the different cycling sites. Good for me that the first few stages are flat stages, which are not as exciting as the mountain stages. Thank God for the weekend, now I can catch up.

Ah, yes, the flat stages – ‘slower’ than other stages, not as exciting – but this doesn’t mean they don’t offer drama and interesting stories. Thanks to uTorrent, I was able to watch the Prologue and Stage 1. As I write this, I am watching Stage 5, first truly exciting stage with lots of climbs, including one that’s Category 2.

The Prologue was amazing! It was all about London – the weather was perfect, the backdrop was beautiful. All of the Brits’ hopes were pinned on David Millar and Bradley Wiggins. Poor Millar felt the pressure and ended up being 13th, the anchors said he felt like a newbie the week leading to the Tour. Wiggins did better, but it just wasn’t enough. Fabian Cancellara, the winner of the Prologue, F-L-E-W. He took so many risks and they paid off! Too bad for Stuart O’ Grady, when it was his turn he was the fastest at the time check, but he crashed in a nasty turn. My favorite Georgie was out to win, what with a very disppointing second place (by a few seconds!) finish last year, but he simply wasn’t good enough. He came in third after Cancellara and Andreas Kloden. Kloden did well and ended up in second place – is this a sign of what’s to come? Will Kloden do better than Vino? (I certainly hope so.)

Stage 1 was a typical flat stage. There was breakaway, which was caught by the peloton. And there were crashes here and there. The headline story though was that Robbie McEwen, a serious contender for any flat stage, was part of a crash and was left by the peloton. His teammates lead him back to the peloton just in time. And guess who won? From out of nowhere, Robbie surged ahead of the pack and won the stage! Even the commentators were surprised. Where did he come from? See, that’s the thing with Robbie, he finds these ‘holes’ within the peloton and brings himself to the front of the pack, sometimes without a leadout man, just going with the flow and following the leadout guys of other teams. I have so much respect for him because he makes sure he finishes the Tour, unlike other sprinters who give up in the mountains and end up abandoning. Boonen, anyone?

I wasn’t able to follow Stages 2-4, but I read that Stage 2 was won by Gert Steegmans. Surprising because he’s the leadout guy of Boonen, who was out to win because the finish was in his country, Belgium. In the end he let Steegmans win, I still have to check what happened to him. Stage 3 went to Cancellara and Stage 4 to Hushovd.

And then there’s Stage 5. It’s not a major mountain stage, more of a practice stage before the Tour reaches the Alps and Pyrenees. There is a Category 2 climb, 7 miles long, hard enough to cut up the peloton to groups, but not hard enough to destroy it to bits. There were lots of crashes, lots of them silly, but the major stories were the crashes that involved Kloden and Vino. Kloden‘s crash gave him a hairline fracture, we’ll see how that will affect his performance in the upcoming stages. Vino‘s crash caused him a few minutes, even if his whole team practically came back for him (except for Kloden). He is now a couple of minutes behind Kloden. What will this mean to Astana? We’ll see.

Some people think – what’s up with cycling? It’s just a bunch of cyclists racing. But there’s so much strategy to think about, there are mountains to be climbed, sprints to be won, and tactics to be used. With Stage 5 of the Tour, CSC needed to balance defending the yellow jersey and wasting there energy. Fabian Cancellara isn’t their leader, so CSC has to conserve their energy for the major mountain stages where Schleck and Sastre (their co-leaders) might need it. But the yellow jersey is the yellow jersey, and one should never disrespect it. In the end, he kept the yellow jersey. Good job.

Speaking of respecting the yellow jersey – I remember last year when I felt that Phonak totally disrespected the yellow jersey. The breakaway had a 30 minute lead on the peloton, and it should have been easy enough to defend the yellow jersey, but they practically gave it away. I was dumbfounded, and it truly showed how inexperienced Phonak was.

Speaking of CSC – I believe they have one of the best teams (I’m having doubts if Discovery is still THE best team out there). They have a stellar line up, they prepare intensely, and they strategize well. They just lack a standout leader. If they have one, they will win hands down. I absolutely don’t believe in co-leaders. The whole team should be focused on one person alone, it should be absolutely sure as to who the leader is. This is what made Lance win 7 times. Remember the T-Mobile mess with Vino and Ullrich? It was amusing to see how teammates are going against each other, and it definitely did not help in their cause at all.

Stage 6 was won by Boonen. Need to read up on that one.

I am looking forward to Stage 7, the first of the Alps stages. (I could have been there now, sigh.) There are 4 climbs, 2 Category 3, 1 Category 4, and 1 Category 1 climb. The leaders should start emerging in this stage – hey Levi, come out now! Please show me that you can indeed win this race!

The Greatest Show on Earth July 8, 2007

Okay, okay. I’m biased. I know that only a few people will agree with me when I say that. To those who don’t know yet, I’m talking about the Tour de France. It just started, and I’m so giddy with excitement!

I admit, this year’s Tour is plagued with many problems, number one of which is doping. It’s not unique to the Tour, it’s a problem of the sport itself. It’s sad, but the show must go on. Sad because all winners will be doubted now, sad because so many good riders are sidelined due to doping allegations. My line now is “May the best non-doper win.” But I’m still excited, because every year the Tour has surprises, every year it offers drama. I’m still looking forward to the great (and stupid) decisions of the different teams, the performance of the peloton, the breakaways, and drama of the climbs.

A lot of people think this is Vinokorouv‘s year, but I think the race is still wide open. Who knows, we might just be surprised along the way. (Remember Rasmussen?) But I agree that Vino has a good chance of winning, primarily because it seems that he has a good team. Astana did well in Dauphine Libere, too well for my liking. The team won at least 2 stages and they did well during the time trial. Their Tour line up includes not only Vino, but Kloden and Salvodelli as well. Kloden is a good climber, and this has been proven twice when he was part of the Top 3 for General Classification. Salvodelli has won the Giro twice. But they have yet to prove themselves during the Tour.

And what about my team, Discovery Channel? They started strong this season, having several stage and tournament wins, but they were a big disappointment during the Giro and even the Dauphine. I’ve never been truly impressed by Levi, their chosen leader for this year’s Tour. Damn, he was #26 in the Prologue!

Yes, off they went. This year’s Tour de France has started, and I’m still trying to figure out how to follow it. Bittorrent, please don’t fail me. Anyway, CSC‘s Fabian Cancellara won the Prologue, even without their Director Sportif, Bjarne Riis. Riis recently admitted to doping during the year that he won, 1996. The Tour has since then taken out his name in all official publications, and they mentioned that Riis wasn’t invited this year. Well, that didn’t affect the team at all. Kloden was second – there goes Astana! And my Georgie was third! I was surprised to see another Discovery rider within Top 5 – Vladimir Gusev. It would have been great for the team but their leader was #26 – a mortal sin I think for any good leader. Not within the Top 20! I am so disappointed.

Okay, time for me to search for videos on the Prologue…