A little sign, after the finish-line: two hands that create a W in the air, not just once, but twice. W W : Wouter Weylandt, the Leopard Trek rider we'll all remember for our whole lives.
The first part of the third stage of the 2011 Tour de France didn't give lots of emotions to the spectators. But still, its final epilogue gave us one of the most touching moments of the year.
For most of the time, the only emotions for the supporters arrived when Gutierrez (one of the breakawayers du jour) decided to joke with the French camera man. For two times in fact the Spanish rider licked the tip of his index finger and then touched the camera lens, forcing the camera man on the motorbike to stop and clean it.
Since the race wasn't that exciting, the Italian chronists had a lot of time to talk about random things. For example, did you know that Riis complained with the jury about Contador's delay after stage one?Here's a recap of what happened.
As you all know, during stage 1 Contador lost contact from the other GC riders after the crash caused by Iglinskiy with 8 kms to go. In the end, Alberto lost about 1' 20" from the Schleck group, although Riis thinks this isn't right. According to Bjarne, in fact, Contador lost time also because of the crash that occurred with 2 kms to go, so his delay after stage 1 should have been the one that he had at the '3 kms to go' mark (43 seconds), and not the one he eventually had at the finish-line. Riis expressed his opinion to the jury, which actually didn't pay any attention to it. Therefore, Conti's delay remained of 1' 20".
Still talking about Contador, I must admit he didn't look that great in an interview he gave to Italian tv this morning. In fact, in it Alberto looked very tired and hadn't even shaved his beard. Moreover, he had a bit of acne (well, sort of) on his forehead. Now, does this mean that Conti is nervous and tired? Or is this a meaningless thing? I don't know how Alberto's skin works but, personally, I get skin problems just when I'm very nervous - and tired. Is this the same also for Bertie? Time will tell.
Back to today's stage, Beppe Saronni said on Italian tv that Alessandro Petacchi isn't feeling very well in these days. In other words: Ale-Jet has a very good form, but his morale is very low as a consequence of a rule that has recently been approved by the Italian Cycling Federation.
Said rule says that those who are banned from cycling after resulting positive at the anti-doping will never be able to take part in the Worlds and in the Italian championships anymore. 'Well, that's a nice rule!', some of you may think. 'What's the problem with it?' Well, the problem with this brand new rule is that it has a retrospective effect. This means that also riders who doped in the past won't be able to take parts in the Worlds anymore.
Amongst the guys who will never be able to take part in the Worlds anymore there are strong guys like Scarponi, Basso and Petacchi and this has obviously caused many polemics here in Italy. In fact, many people think it's unfair to prevent these riders from racing in the Worlds because:
1. when they doped, they couldn't now that they would have lost their chances of representing Italy in the Worlds
2. a rule like that exists just in Italy.
I personally believe that this rule is a very positive one, but I don't really think it should have a retrospective effect. Moreover, I think it's unfair to create it just in Italy. In fact, I don't see why Italians can't have Petacchi in the Worlds, whereas England can have David Millar in the TT and Kazakhstan can have Vinokourov in the road race.
Anyway, I was saying: as a consequence of this new born rule, Petacchi won't be able to take part in the Copenhagen Worlds (the biggest goal of this season for him) and this has really brought him down. Actually, this news has shocked him so much that Petacchi has even threatened he'll race the Copenhagen Worlds for Kazakhstan, if that rule isn't repealed in the next few weeks. Therefore, we can all understand why he isn't in a very focused mood right now.
In spite of all these problems, however, Ale-Jet was in a very good position as the peloton approached the finale of today's stage. In fact he was on Cavendish's wheel, right behind the HTC leadout train. Too bad that the HTC guys all lost themselves in the last curve of the race, so that Garmin could take the best positions at the head of the peloton. Thor Hushovd and Julian Dean did a very good job for Farrar, who eventually managed to win the stage in front of Feillu and Rojas.
As he crossed the finish-line, Tyler created a WW in the air, causing the whole word of Cycledom to get very moved.
"This has been a horrible last two months with everything that happened in the Giro," Farrar told Cyclingnews. "I've had a lot of ups and downs but in the end I wanted to come back and do something special and this is certainly the biggest stage that you can do that. I've trained hard and I could feel I was getting stronger over the last few weeks. It's a little bit unbelievable that it could happen. Everything just came together". And everything comes even more together if we think that Wouter won the third stage of the 2010 Giro, died in the third stage of 2011 Giro and that Tyler won the third stage of 2011 Tour (thanks to Marleen for making me notice this coincidence - if we can call it this way...).
On to other riders, Thor Hushovd kept the yellow jersey, whereas the green one went to Rojas. Talking about the other sprinters, Dumoulin crashed after having a collision with Oss in the last curve. The promising Galimzyanov instead was 11th.
One of my favourite riders, Chris Anker Sorensen, crossed the finish-line 4 minutes after the winner. It wasn't an easy day for Chris, since he had to work a lot at the front of the peloton in order to defend his teammates from the possible echelons. However, I must say that Sorensen also seemed to enjoy his day in the peloton. In fact, first I saw him talking to Voigt, then he rolled towards the finish-line while talking with Navarro and Hernandez (and while fighting hopelessly with his gloves :P).
On to tomorrow, the 4th Tour stage ends on Mur de Bretagne, a 2 kms climb that has some very steep parts (its first km in fact is 10% steep). Gilbert is the main favourite, although I think Cunego could do something good too.
Tomorrow we'll also have to pay a lot attention to the fight for yellow: in fact right now Gilbert (whose birhtday is tomorrow, whereas today was Gusev's birthday) has a delay of 33" from Hushovd, but Evans is just 1" down on Thor. And los Schlecks are just 4" down in the GC, just like Fuglsang and Gerdemann.
Andy seems to have moved himself up to 8th position in the overall standings, just 3 seconds down from Cadel Evans. I know it's too early to be worried about the GC, but I'm on holidays soon, and I'm hoping not to be greeted by a surprise maillot jaune in Paris!
RispondiEliminaI was very happy that Tyler won today. What a beautiful way to win his first stage at the Tour De France, and on the 4th of July as well. He seemed so demoralised at the Giro, so it's good to see that he seems to be in better spirits.
You don't think that Philippe Gilbert has the punk / rebel look going for him? Tom Boonen is so clean cut, I wouldn't have pegged him as the rebellious type... until I saw his profile picture on twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/TomBoonen
Quite a polite hand gesture there :P
Maybe Chris Anker was exhausted from all the head bobbling he does...
RispondiEliminaHello Fede!
RispondiEliminaI'm glad your Maturità exam is behind you. A nice workload you had there, girl. In America we had it much easier.
About the Tour, I only saw the evening recaps of the first two stages as I had a little surprise vacation.
I wasn't going to comment previous posts here, but I must laugh at your uncle's joke, even though the prospect of Frank Schleck falling into the sea wouldn't really surprise me. And while I'm at it, thank you for mentioning Gilbert's hair color. I spent the entire day wondering whether I'd imagined him being dark-haired during the Classics season before a dye job even crossed my mind. For a girl working in a beauty salon, I really am slow sometimes. Also I must mention my snide little smile when I saw Contador's delay.
I don't have much to say about the TTT since all I ever saw of it were the final standings, but I will mention how hard I laughed when I read on Twitter about what happened to Frankie with the wasp/bee/whatever and the camera. The man is seriously too much of a bad luck magnet for his own good.
The third stage was the first one I actually saw. I must take a minute to be a proud mommy and mention how much Olivia enjoys race time (I know that it's really the colors and the happy mommy that she likes, but still :)
Bjarne really tried to neutralize Conti's delay? Ridiculous. I'm not among the people who suddenly dislike Riis just because the Schlecks aren't with him anymore, but what's low is still low.
The same skin thing happens to me too, Fede. Nervous, tired, stressed = a bug, messy breakout.
I know it's still early to say anything, but so far I haven't seen (or heard) anything to make me believe that Contador can do something this year. He was the first one to admit that he's still tired from the Giro.
On to Farrar victory, I actually jumped from my couch and squealed "Yes!!!" when he crossed the finish line. I'd liked Tyler Farrar ever since I'd liked cycling and to see him win on a day like this was something special. I noticed the coincidence with the third stage the moment I saw him make the W with his hands and I damn near cried. Plus, yesterday was Independence day :D
On a random note, my grandma and I have a little dilemma about wives/girlfriends of cyclists... How they manage to make an appearance at so many start and/or finish lines per year? Jobs, anyone?
My grandma (who is a hard-core feminist, I must add) seems to think they must have a bucket load of money and no jobs, since they always seem to be there. Needless to add, she finds it insulting.
I, on the other hand, find it easily explainable by the fact that many races take place on weekends and some of those women are pregnant/new moms and thus still on maternity leave, so why not come.
Any opinions, gals?
I must say I agree with Riis about the amount of time Alberto lost on stage 1. The first crash was just bad luck to be caught in the pile up. The second delay was because of the second crash which happened within the final 3 km 'safe'zone. Contador and the others were delayed by this crash. The riders involved in the crash are given the same time as the finishing group, but the chasing riders stopped by this crash are not. It doesn't really seem fair. I think the Contador chase group was about 40 seconds behind the peleton when they were stopped by the second crash. I really think that was the time that should have been used to calculate the final standings.
RispondiEliminaPoor Frank. He is a disaster waiting to happen.
Brenda
Good point, Cristin. Actually, Tyler Farrar's girlfriend was on Sporza yesterday and when they asked her if she's going to be there the whole Tour, she answered that she's always there, but in the background. My sister and I immediately wondered about 'always', thinking indeed, like your grandma also said, doesn't she work? Maybe some riders want their girlfriends to always be there, especially because they are away from home most of the time? I don't know.. but like you said, most of them are pregnant/have children and their man is away a lot, so I can imagine them taking it easy and visiting races :-)
RispondiEliminaOlivia enjoys cycling, that's so sweet! :-)
When I read about that new rule in Italian cycling, I was a bit surprised.. I think it's good, but the whole retrospective thing is a bit harsh. I do think that Italy is doing a good job by becoming less tolerant, but I'm not sure if this is the right way..
Still so sad about Wouter :( They showed pictures from his crash, the stage afterwards and his funeral before the stage today - made me cry again. I'm really happy that Tyler can keep going and still wants to keep going. That's what Wouter would have wanted.
RispondiEliminaAbout Chris: actually he was talking to Lars Bak when he crossed the finish line - apparently some Danish journalist found it newsworthy that he suddenly had the need to tell Lars Bak funny stories (or "røverhistorier" as Chris prefers calling them but I have no idea how to translate that properly xD) :P Talking about Chris, they've decided to make a quiz with him on TV2 during the Tour. Every day they ask a question about something Chris has once said - always funny!
I suppose girlfriends/wives tend to time their work so they can get some time off during for example the Tour. Most other important races, as you say Cristin, are on the weekends so they shouldn't be a problem. But must be far from all girlfriends/wives who are there for all three weeks. But it was me, I'd definitely visit as many races as possible :P
Awww, Olivia is already a true fan girl! :D
@ Figbash: Figgy, I wish you a lot of fun for your holidays! When are you leaving? And have you solved your 'Champs Elysées' dilemma? ;)
RispondiEliminaHopefully in Paris you'll be able to witness a Schleck's triumph - at least, that's what we're all hoping for!
Tyler really deserved this victory, especially because no other rider knew Wouter better than him. I remember that, a few weeks before the start of the Tour, Farrar even said he didn't know whether he would take part in the French race because after Wouter's death he was so down that he couldn't train properly. Therefore, he thought it would have been unfair towards his teammates if he had taken part in the Tour without being in the top shape.
Luckily, now Tyler is feeling better and yesterday he got that amazing victory. I think that yesterday's one was his bestest win ever -it was so meaningful!
Ahah, now I understand what you meant by comparing PhilGil and Johnny! I thought you were comparing them from the handsomeness (is this a word?) point of view :P Now that I know what you meant, I must agree with you: Phil surely has that 'pirate' look that makes him similar to Johnny.
Boonen seems a very nice guy who really likes sweet animals like donkeys, but we mustn't forget that he had problems with cocaine a few years ago, so he isn't actually as innocent as he seems...
@ Sansen: LOL! Poor Chris really seems unable to keep his head still while riding, but in that way at least it's easy to recognise him when he rides in the peloton!
@ Cristin: Good evening, mommy Cristin! :)
I'm very happy to know that Olivia is already a little cycling fan, as soon as she grows up a bit we could buy her a little Leopard Trek kit! Or, if she prefers colourful jerseys, we could buy her a polka dots one! ;)
My sister was shocked as well when she saw blonde Gilbert for the first time. Before realising he had dyed his hair, she even thought he had become bald!!
Frank is a bad luck magnet indeed, poor thing!
I didn't really like the fact that Riis asked to neutralise Contador's delay. In fact, I don't think he actually managed to lose 40" in the last two kms of race...
I don't usually trust what GC riders say, so I don't trust Contador when he says he feels tired because of the Giro :P He's a true winner, and I'm sure he'll try to win also this Tour.
Today Alberto's face didn't look that great either, but he showed us he's intentioned to do well. However, I do find it strange that he didn't manage to win the stage - especially if you consider that he ended up second because of a banal mistake (he kept his hands on the upper part of the handlebar while sprinting).
Your grandma and you had a very interesting dilemma!! Actually, I think there are different kinds of wives/girlfriends - and different ways in which they can afford themselves to be at so many cycling races.
For example, there are wives/girlfriends who often go to races because they don't work or because their husbands are rich enough to maintain them. But, as @ Marleen says, there are also women who probably take a month off during GTs. In addition, there are also women who join their husbands/boyfriends just during the weekends, probably because during the rest of the time they're too busy with work.
I remember reading a blog by Nicolas Roche who, talking about the rest day at last year Vuelta, said that his girlfriend faced a very long travel (from Verona to Spain by train) just in order to spend the rest day with him. Then, on the following day, she was off to Italy again. Therefore, I think there are also some girls who work and have to make big sacrifices to stay close to their husbands during GTs.
@ Brenda: I think we should have some images showing us what precisely happened with 2 kms to go, if we really wanted to understand if Riis is right or wrong in asking the jury to neutralise Conti's delay. In fact, I can understand that the Spaniard was delayed by that second crash, but losing 40" in the final 2 kms of that stage seems too much to me.
RispondiEliminaAnd then, I think it's strange that Euskaltel's ds didn't support Riis' request to the jury.
Still, I must admit that the '3 kms to go' rule is a very strange one. For example, Cavendish on Saturday got just 6" of delay in the GC, although he would have surely lost much more time if the last kms of that stage hadn't been neutralised.
Let's just hope our riding disaster doesn't break any bone this year! ;)
@ Marleen: That Italian rule is really controversial. I hate the whole retrospective thing, especially because some of the riders won't be able to take part in the Worlds anymore because they had some very strange doping cases in the past. Petacchi's doping case, for example, was really ridicolous.
The problem with this new rule is that it exists just in Italy and, as a supporter, I don't think this is fair. In fact, why can't we have Petacchi at the Worlds, whereas Kazakhstan can have Vino? Really, this rule is just creating more and more polemics here in Italy - and this isn't good at all.
@ Susanne: Luckily Italian tv didn't show those images - otherwise, I would have started to cry as well.
Actually, a few hours ago I watched
@ Marleen's new wallpapers on 'Ride On!' and I almost broke into tears. Nowadays, watching Wouter and Xavier Tondo smiling in old pictures is really hard for me.
Chris seems such a funny guy! He's always kidding and laughing, I think his roommate is the luckiest man in the peloton!
Ahah, I'd visit as many races as possible too, if I were the girlfriend of a pro cyclist! In particular, I wouldn't miss the last week of the Giro for anything in the world ;)
Now there are riders who consider changing their nationality (I believe Petacchi wants to ride for Kazakhstan?) it is getting out of hand imo. If this is the result of that rule, it is obviously not the right thing for cycling. Also, like you said, if only Italy is doing this, it doesn't lead to anything in the end, riders can simply change nationality..
RispondiEliminaThanks for mentioning my wallpapers, Fede. I've waited a very long time before making them.. it was too hard at first :(
Fede, it's funny you should mention the Champs. Here's something I wrote a few weeks ago:
RispondiEliminaI have been researching places where I can just wander into, and watch the race, after a bit of sightseeing. I've seen pretty thin crowds in footage taken from the Rue de Rivoli, on the north side of the Tuileries. May I say, I hate scouring internet forums for advice--they're chockablock with unhelpful directions.
Unhelpful dude no. 1: "Walk along the left side of the Champs, until you reach the tunnel that the cyclists have to go through"
Me: No point of reference, whether you're approaching the Champs from the east or west, and the bleeding tunnel doesn't have a name?
Unhelpful dude no. 2: "My own viewing area is the Louvre-Seine corner inside the Tuileries. The Tuileries do not get very crowded because most people can't figure out how to get in (you can't cross the street, and the metro stations close quite early). It's quite simple, just cross the Seine-Rivoli tunnel."
Me: Aha, but there isn't a Seine-Rivoli tunnel, at least it isn't officially called that, and if you're at the Louvre-Seine corner, you would be at the SOUTH end of the Tuileries, away from the Rue de Rivoli, and the Champs.
I've also read some truly HORRIFIC advice, written by men, about where to go for a washroom break. The topiaries of the Tuileries are NOT makeshift toilets!
As I write this, Tom Boonen seems to have crashed, and is riding in considerable pain. I'm hoping Andy doesn't find himself stuck in peloton traffic today :P
@ Marleen: I really do hope that that rule is repealed before the beginning of the Copenhagen Worlds. Petacchi is a great champion and he'd really deserve a chance to win the rainbow jersey.
RispondiEliminaYour wallpapers are one of the most touching things I've ever seen, I almost burst into tears while watching them!!
@ Figbash: Men use the topiaries of the Tuileres as lavatories? I am disgusted.
It must be frustrating to look for some advice on the forums. I don't like wandering into big cities without knowing how to get where I want to, so I can understand how you're feeling right now.
Unfortunately, men (most of the cycling forums are written by them) aren't very precise creatures ;)
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that not many Europeans will be able to give you 'west/east/south/north' indications :S
Considering this fact, and considering the Italian myth according to which Frenchmen can't speak a word of any foreign language, I suggest you buying a map of Paris as soon as you get in the airport. Believe me, it will soon become one of your most trusted friends.