TDF stage 17: a comedy of dullness
That's what Pez are calling it, and who can argue? The big day of Le Tour '08 came and went with precious little damage done to the main field. Hell, there were sprinters still in the hunt coming up the foothills of L'Alpe. A girl with a trike broke clear with 10 to go, prompting Sastre to try to salvage some pride by riding his bike up a hill. He may have crosse the line with 2 minutes on the rest, but the fact that the rest crossed it all together says a lot about todays stage and the tour in general.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the best racing never happens at Le Tour because there is too much to loose. The set up for the stage was perfect - 3 monster climbs well into the 3rd week. Everything to play for. So why such a fizzer of a stage? Is there a shortage of EPO?
Fact is everyone was on the defensive and that's just no fun. Even Carlos was on the defense, and he was riding up the road to the stage win. Where was the inspirational move? Where was the daring - the panache? Did these ideals all die in Vino's blast radius?
I don't know about you, but I watch cycling for the crazy, not the sensible. For the amazing, not the mundane. CSC shut the race down and everyone else was too damn chicken to do anything about it.
2 comments:
It just goes to show that there are no personalities in the sport anymore, at least Cippo would have disembarked at the foot of a mole hill by throwing his bike yet still claiming he's the greatest thing that ever happened to the women of the world and cycling.
Cadel seems to just hang on but doesn't know how to attack - must be a symptom of his team who don't know how to support a team leaderoutside the final hair-raising 30 meters. Doing "just enough' reminds me of the 2002 German Football team. 1-0 is all that they needed to win, 1-0 and shut down the game. Effective but boooringggg......
Disagree, not completely but a little. This years Tour is on a knifes edge and we havn't seen such a a tight race ever. There are still five players in for a shout although Evans is sitting pretty. I'd also like to see more attacking from CSC but as soon as Sastre went and built a gap, Frank couldn't attack his team leader. they had two cards to play and the left side play caught everyone by surprise. It's great seeing a team take control of the race again. You can't say they weren't trying to ride some of the big players off, Cancelara did brilliant work up till the end. But I do agree that we need another attacking rider that will liven things up.
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