Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Tour Quick Hitters


Attack Dog
Originally uploaded by sethsdisciple.
K had a precise recap of the stage today.

Did you notice that Discovery had a guy with a water bottle to hand to Lance on the final climb? I don't think that is normal and I don't think any other team did it. Lance was the only one hydrating on the climb. A small advantage, but the type of thing only they seem to think of.

What do you think Lance was saying to Popovych just before he shredded the field for Lance? Do you think Lance knows the russian words for "Rip their legs off"?

5 Comments:

Blogger erika said...

the discovery team is the only one who seemed to know about the train tracks, too.

HA!

10:41 PM  
Blogger Tom said...

Yup. Did you notice Lance sneaking up the right side of the road (pulling away from the field to give himself room to maneuver) right before the tracks? He went off camera, but dollars to donuts he went over those tracks close to a 90 degree angle.

10:49 PM  
Blogger TheGirard said...

so is this Valverde guy the real deal? They are playing him like the next lance.

8:42 AM  
Blogger Tom said...

I haven't seen enough of Valverde yet to pass any judgement (not that I'm any huge authority).

He is hanging on Lance's wheel again so far today.

The problem is that 25 is probably too young to be there the whole time in the Tour. The age of maturity is much later in cycling than other sports, as they need miles and miles and miles built up in their legs. They also need recovery cycles (kill yourself, recover, kill yourself, recover). The more times you go through those cycles, the more quickly you recover.

Valverde is still young, but he looks like he has a stong will. He can sprint and climb. It'll be interesting to see how he does in the final time trial, which is the other important discipline.

9:22 AM  
Blogger erika said...

tom, i didn't notice it, but i heard the commentators talk about it.

10:56 AM  

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