Stage One
We should talk about Petacchi, who won the sprint to the line to claim a stage victory and that he is a real contender for the Green. Or Robbie McEwen, who finished second in the final sprint, picked up enough points to get himself back in Green Jersey. We should talk about an eight-minute breakway by three riders who had three common attributes:
1) They ride for marginal teams
2) They are French
3) They suck
But we're not going to. OK, I just mentioned that other stuff (neat trick, eh?), but the big story of the day is Kelme's Jose Enrique Guitierrez. His foot slipped off the pedals about 400 meters from the finish on a bizarre tight turn down the stretch. In the fast-moving peleton, that close to the finish line, there was bound to be a disastrous crash. And there was. Among its casualties were Lance Armstrong and Brad McGee, but they got off lucky. OK, not McGee, who needed the points on the final sprint, but he's okay.
Levi Leipheimer broke a bone in his spine. Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone. Both are out of the Tour de France because the organizers don't know how to design the final kilometer of a course which was going to have a huge sprint finish. Armstrong, predictably, blamed the French. But that's nothing new, he's had a long-standing feud with Tour organizers. Petacchi, the winner of the stage, joined the chorus, as did Benard Riis, former winner and CSC's manager. When even the winner complains about the course, it's not just sour grapes.
So we were nice to the organizers for a good 24 hours. Now let's set those phasers to kill. How many incompetents are allowed to run this race? It's like they go out of their way to make stupid decisions which will backfire horribly. There just shouldn't be hairpin turns in the finals sprint of a flat stage. They had to know the peleton would finish as one huge mass. This crash didn't have to happen. And now two podium threats are out of the Tour on the first real day fo racing.
We should talk about Petacchi, who won the sprint to the line to claim a stage victory and that he is a real contender for the Green. Or Robbie McEwen, who finished second in the final sprint, picked up enough points to get himself back in Green Jersey. We should talk about an eight-minute breakway by three riders who had three common attributes:
1) They ride for marginal teams
2) They are French
3) They suck
But we're not going to. OK, I just mentioned that other stuff (neat trick, eh?), but the big story of the day is Kelme's Jose Enrique Guitierrez. His foot slipped off the pedals about 400 meters from the finish on a bizarre tight turn down the stretch. In the fast-moving peleton, that close to the finish line, there was bound to be a disastrous crash. And there was. Among its casualties were Lance Armstrong and Brad McGee, but they got off lucky. OK, not McGee, who needed the points on the final sprint, but he's okay.
Levi Leipheimer broke a bone in his spine. Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone. Both are out of the Tour de France because the organizers don't know how to design the final kilometer of a course which was going to have a huge sprint finish. Armstrong, predictably, blamed the French. But that's nothing new, he's had a long-standing feud with Tour organizers. Petacchi, the winner of the stage, joined the chorus, as did Benard Riis, former winner and CSC's manager. When even the winner complains about the course, it's not just sour grapes.
So we were nice to the organizers for a good 24 hours. Now let's set those phasers to kill. How many incompetents are allowed to run this race? It's like they go out of their way to make stupid decisions which will backfire horribly. There just shouldn't be hairpin turns in the finals sprint of a flat stage. They had to know the peleton would finish as one huge mass. This crash didn't have to happen. And now two podium threats are out of the Tour on the first real day fo racing.
posted by Poseur at 5:48 PM
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