tour de farce

[Kitch]

more impressive was the perfect synchrinisation achieved with Verbrugghe as they both went over the barrier, it would have been comical if not so horrific - did he break his femur ?

[Ed]

more impressive was the perfect synchrinisation achieved with Verbrugghe as they both went over the barrier, it would have been comical if not so horrific - did he break his femur ?

from my understanding of the german tv commentator, it was a fracture at the top of the femur on the bit that goes to the ball into the hip (my german is marginally better than my anatomy). whatever it was, there was also an impressive amount of blood on him as well.

[Doug T]

the first couple of times i saw the replay on itv4 last night i never noticed Verbrugghe crash and the commentators didn't seem to notice either.
i think this tour has been the most exciting ive followed just because it is so wide open as to who is going to win in, and with no one team dominating like postal/discovery did in the past.

who do people reckon will win?
Landis, as long as the old mans hip doesnt go, is my bet.

[Kitch]

Still think its wide open with 3 big days in the Alps.
Alpe D'Heuz first could get a very over excited because its such a classic, plus no-one really knows who they should be watching, who should they be marking, who should they be judging themselves against ? For 7 years there has been order - Lance was the man - this year nobody - confusion.
Follow over excitement on d'Huez with the Galibier and 2 other biggies and some people will suffer big time the next day.
The winner is the one that has been biding their time for the Alps and has paced it for Wednesday, I'm not sure we've seen the winner in yellow yet.

[fish]

and it's started looking like it will be an interesting stage - big group a bit ahead of the peloton, with lots of very good riders in it, maybe with the aim of being a bit ahead and helping team leaders later in the stage? CSC with schleck, voigt and zabiskie is interesting - wonder how Sastre will go today...
if only somewhere other than in front of the computer in the office ...!

[Ed]

if only somewhere other than in front of the computer in the office ...!

that's what live video streams are for (probably only works in Germany that one!)

[mharky]

eurosport has a good page...

[Adventure Racer]

http://live.cyclingnews.com/ is recommended too.

[Pinches]

The winner is the one that has been biding their time for the Alps and has paced it for Wednesday, I'm not sure we've seen the winner in yellow yet.

I'm with you Kitch, and not just 'cos I put a tenner on to win Kloden to win last week! He looked really strong yesterday, and I reckon he was biding his time for the final two Alpine stages. Landis' team don't have the best pedigree, and it looks like they're not being much help today. Kloden for a big attack on the La Toussuire, go on son!

[FatBoy]

Well I dunno what's going on anymore. 30 mins from the end I was convinced Landis was in total control of the tour. Now who knows? There's proabably quite a few teams kicking themselves for letting Piero get all that time back that he lost. Dessel also written off as a relative nobody after taking yellow first day in the Pyrenees is still in the mix. Sastre, Kloeden and Evans all lurking. Wicked stuff.

[m]

Today was awesome, the best fun to watch so far. Landis hit the wall big time and Rasmusson is an absolute legend.

[Stodgetta]

The Tour has lost its interest for me this year after a conversation I had soon after it started with a friend who is well connected in cycling.

We were talking about the doping allegations and the fact that Ulrich (someone I've admired for years) and Basso weren't riding, when I asked if it was any surprise.

The answer was no, all the European cyclists look at drugs as the norm. You can test positive, and it comes to no shock to anybody - the question you are likely to be asked next is "when are you racing again?". Apparently there is a cocktail (?known as the Belgian Bilge or something similar), which includes cocaine and I think I was told heroin, that the cyclists take every night which enables them to get up and ride the next day. It also has the added benefit that cocaine in the urine helps to mask other drugs presence. Most retiring road cyclists are cocaine addicts, and alot commit suicide (Pantani died of a coke OD).

We have a mutual friend (well, more of an aquaintance for me, really) who rode in the Tour who was clean, and it destroyed his cycling career as a pro because he just couldn't do what the others were doing day in, day out, and it wasn't down to his physical ability.

My friend told me that British cycling is clean. If anyone is suspected of using drugs etc the drugs team are sent in again and again. Bradley Wiggins gets awesome results on physiological testing (as did Chris Boardman), yet when it comes to the Tour, he just drops further and further back the longer it goes on. He has gone out to France with his eyes open "for a bit of fun"!. It explains alot about Boardmans performances, too.

I got told other stuff, too, about big names in the sport, but this probably isn't the place to put it

I just can't get excited about it anymore. I wish I was 16 again watching Lemond and Fignon in innocence, or 20 and camping out on the Col de Puymorens to watch the tour go past (I have a photo of Big Mig in the flesh)!

It's not that drugs and cycling go together that has made the Tour lose its sparkle for me this year, but the fact that the vast majority of riders are using drugs rather than a few. I haven't been naive in the past and shut my eyes to the drugs issue - it's been obvious for years with stuff in the news - but I guess I've always hoped that the people I've watched with awe and admiration may have been clean. Now I know they haven't.

[Adventure Racer]

Whilst it does sound like you have connections, the fact that Belgian Mix went out many many years ago (apart from anything else it will show up on tests) suggests that some of what you have been told isn't entirely accurate. Given that BW didn't have the greatest prologue (something he should be good at, given he's won the World Pursuit title), then I can't really say that his overall performance is that unexpected, as he can't have been in that fantastic form. Also CB had quite low natural hormone levels, which explains his lack of a top performance in long races due to his inability to recover as well as others (recovery does vary a lot independent of basic fitness - I know this personally, as I recover better than most people and tend to be going a lot better at the end of a multi-day race than people who have been beating me at the start). I think we all accept that CB was clean, yet he had some really top performances against all these other riders who you suggest are all doping, including for instance winning the Criterium International overall.

I'm not for one minute suggesting the whole peleton is clean, even now, but I don't think the picture is quite as bleak as you are painting it. For one thing, the way this Tour has swung back and forth, particularly epitomised by today does suggest most people are clean, as those on drugs normally seem to be a lot more consistent (looking back at those we know for sure were).

One final point: Dr Fuentes (the Spanish Dr who started the latest scandal) supposedly had 200 patients. Only 50 or so of those were cyclists. What about the other 150 athletes, tennis players, footballers, who could have been competing at Wimbledon, the WC etc.? Why the silence about these, or even the laughable comment from somebody high up in tennis that it didn't affect tennis as all the tests had been negative (news for them - so had those of all the cyclists thrown off the Tour). Maybe if cycling pushed it under the carpet like these other sports, we would be less cynical about it - personally I reckon cycling is actually cleaner nowadays than many of these other sports, given the different attitudes of the governing bodies.

[the duncan]

there is always the stats that if x amount of people are known to be on drugs, or get caught, then there are probably many more too. and sadly cycling is so tarnished by it, there is very little it can do to prove its innocence.

i'd like to believe that they are not on drugs, but can't, you don't know who to believe now adays.

the only way to stamp it out is to take away the money, Orienteering has no problem, cos there is no cash involved, AR has no problem, cos no fool wants to make their bag any heavier than it already is for the multi day races!!

but seriously, with the cocktail of drugs available to people today, and doctors like senor spanish dude, they are always going to be there in big numbers in cash rich sports.

[pyrat]

Landis is going to have to pull out something very special if he wants it back!