Saturday, July 01, 2006

Le Tour


I just got through watching the prologue time trial of this year's Tour de France. Game on! This is the first time since 1988 that no past winner has started the race. Until this morning I missed Lance - but now I'm so glad he's retired. This race will be very exciting. I hope Americans can get over this personality driven fad with the "Tour de Lance" (thank ESPN for that gem!) Lance is not the greatest Tour rider ever - Eddy Mercx is. And there are really great American riders who have been living in Lance's shadow for too long - Floyd Landis, Dave Zabriski, George Hincapie, Bobby Julich, Levi Leipheimer. What's the big deal about the TDF? It's the greatest show on earth! It's chess at 40 mph with the 189 fittest athletes in the world enacting pure drama for a solid three weeks! Watch the Tour this year. Let the bug bite you! Oh, by the way, the super-fast rider in the blue and red Supermanesque "skinsuit" in the picture is . . . Me! That was the 1994 University of Port Elizabeth Criterium series. Ryan and I knew how to bring it on faster than a speeding bullet!

1 comment:

Ray said...

Don't disagree with you -- but try and get Americans to watch something that takes THREE weeks to complete -- C'mon, that is probably not going to happen this year.

Even my friends who watched the TDF, ONLY watched it to see what Lance was doing...

BTW, Brazil out of the World Cup? Changes things, doesn't it? You ought to be working for a French company!

I agree with the statement about the athletes -- in my mind, the best-conditioned athletes are:

World Class Soccer Players
World Class Cyclists

A 400 lb football (U.S.) lineman would drop dead within minutes of these competitions.

Here is an old post of mine that states my feelings:

True Accomplishment