Stage 20
How many?
photo from velonews.com
1) Be sure to check this page Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll have more posts of TdF digest--an all star team, a team evaluation, and maybe some more stuff.
2) Congrats to Tom Boonen. In his first Tour he picked up two stage wins, including the big one on the Champs Elysees.
3) Robbie McEwen won the green jersey and Thor Hushovd was the runner up. They sparred over the intermediate sprints, but actually picked up equal points. In the first one, Hushovd had a perfect lead out from his team, but he was too busy looking back for McEwen to notice that Robbie had already passed him on the other side. In the second sprint, Hushovd shot out like a cannonball and McEwen couldn't keep his wheel. But in the final sprint to the finish line Hushovd made a bad turn around the corner, lost his position, and was out of the running. Green for McEwen.
4) Richard Virenque took home his 7th King of the Mountains competition, a record. Vladimir Karpets won the white jersey. Telekom won the team competition.
5) I love hearing my national anthem played in Paris.
6) You don't need me to tell you Lance won. He was amazingly dominant against a very deep field. Now, the guys at OLN (the Only Lance Network) are canonizing him, and that's fine, but let me bring up a few points. In 1964 Jacques Anquetil won his 5th Tour at a time when no one else had more than 3. Ten years later Eddy Merckx won his 5th, and it was obvious that he was the greatest cyclist ever because he was dominant in a way Anquetil couldn't have imagined. By 1985 Bernard Hinault had joined them, and just a decade later Indurain had won five in a row. Now, another decade later Lance Armstrong has passed them all. So maybe there is a pattern of a driven champion meeting the challenges of the greats, and maybe we will see someone match or top Armstrong. It's very hard to make meaningful comparisons over several decades, this much we can say--Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France, arguably the most difficult sporting event in the world, more times than anyone ever. Records are made to be broken, and this one will take a minimum 7 years to break.
Al Trautwig has been asking everyone to put this into perspective, and that's why OLN is paying him, but we really can't. I think of it this way. I'm a pretty good athlete. I play soccer; I've run a few marathons, but it's not like I could have been a pro at anything. While I can survive a 4 hour run in the middle of winter, I have trouble walking the next day, so I have a rough time understanding what it's like to ride a bike 6 hours a day for three weeks in July. And I didn't even mention the mountains. So, as much as I think I know about the Tour, and as much as I appreciate the tremendous work of these athletes, they're on a level so far beyond what we are familiar with.
A year ago I tried to explain Lance's accomplishment of 5 consecutive wins by listing the men who had started and finished the same 5 Tours, 1999-2003. There were 10. So rather than try to tell you Lance is better than a guy who won a few decades ago, I'll re-visit the contempories.
How did the 10 iron men do in 2004? Massimiliano Lelli and Mario Aerts didn't start. Sebastien Hinault crashed and ended up in a hospital. Tyler Hamilton crashed, hurt his back, and couldn't go on. So who remains in this select group?
name (best finish, average finish)
Christophe Mengin (70, 91)
Erik Zabel (59, 82)
George Hincapie (33, 59)
Giuseppe Guerini (22, 38)
Francisco Mancebo (6, 12)
Lance Armstrong (1, 1)
There are only 6 human beings on the planet that have finished the last 6 Tours. Only two of them have ever finished in the top 20. But Lance has won all 6. Winning the Tour not only requires talent, but preparation, strategy, mental toughness, teammates, and there are many things outside of a rider's control, like crashes and illness. Simply put, Lance Armstrong towers above the finest athletes in the world. If you are I were to go riding with Mengin, we'd probably think he is a freak of nature.
That's what he thinks about Lance Armstrong.
How many?
photo from velonews.com
1) Be sure to check this page Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll have more posts of TdF digest--an all star team, a team evaluation, and maybe some more stuff.
2) Congrats to Tom Boonen. In his first Tour he picked up two stage wins, including the big one on the Champs Elysees.
3) Robbie McEwen won the green jersey and Thor Hushovd was the runner up. They sparred over the intermediate sprints, but actually picked up equal points. In the first one, Hushovd had a perfect lead out from his team, but he was too busy looking back for McEwen to notice that Robbie had already passed him on the other side. In the second sprint, Hushovd shot out like a cannonball and McEwen couldn't keep his wheel. But in the final sprint to the finish line Hushovd made a bad turn around the corner, lost his position, and was out of the running. Green for McEwen.
4) Richard Virenque took home his 7th King of the Mountains competition, a record. Vladimir Karpets won the white jersey. Telekom won the team competition.
5) I love hearing my national anthem played in Paris.
6) You don't need me to tell you Lance won. He was amazingly dominant against a very deep field. Now, the guys at OLN (the Only Lance Network) are canonizing him, and that's fine, but let me bring up a few points. In 1964 Jacques Anquetil won his 5th Tour at a time when no one else had more than 3. Ten years later Eddy Merckx won his 5th, and it was obvious that he was the greatest cyclist ever because he was dominant in a way Anquetil couldn't have imagined. By 1985 Bernard Hinault had joined them, and just a decade later Indurain had won five in a row. Now, another decade later Lance Armstrong has passed them all. So maybe there is a pattern of a driven champion meeting the challenges of the greats, and maybe we will see someone match or top Armstrong. It's very hard to make meaningful comparisons over several decades, this much we can say--Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France, arguably the most difficult sporting event in the world, more times than anyone ever. Records are made to be broken, and this one will take a minimum 7 years to break.
Al Trautwig has been asking everyone to put this into perspective, and that's why OLN is paying him, but we really can't. I think of it this way. I'm a pretty good athlete. I play soccer; I've run a few marathons, but it's not like I could have been a pro at anything. While I can survive a 4 hour run in the middle of winter, I have trouble walking the next day, so I have a rough time understanding what it's like to ride a bike 6 hours a day for three weeks in July. And I didn't even mention the mountains. So, as much as I think I know about the Tour, and as much as I appreciate the tremendous work of these athletes, they're on a level so far beyond what we are familiar with.
A year ago I tried to explain Lance's accomplishment of 5 consecutive wins by listing the men who had started and finished the same 5 Tours, 1999-2003. There were 10. So rather than try to tell you Lance is better than a guy who won a few decades ago, I'll re-visit the contempories.
How did the 10 iron men do in 2004? Massimiliano Lelli and Mario Aerts didn't start. Sebastien Hinault crashed and ended up in a hospital. Tyler Hamilton crashed, hurt his back, and couldn't go on. So who remains in this select group?
name (best finish, average finish)
Christophe Mengin (70, 91)
Erik Zabel (59, 82)
George Hincapie (33, 59)
Giuseppe Guerini (22, 38)
Francisco Mancebo (6, 12)
Lance Armstrong (1, 1)
There are only 6 human beings on the planet that have finished the last 6 Tours. Only two of them have ever finished in the top 20. But Lance has won all 6. Winning the Tour not only requires talent, but preparation, strategy, mental toughness, teammates, and there are many things outside of a rider's control, like crashes and illness. Simply put, Lance Armstrong towers above the finest athletes in the world. If you are I were to go riding with Mengin, we'd probably think he is a freak of nature.
That's what he thinks about Lance Armstrong.
posted by uberschuck at 10:16 PM
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