The world's largest annual sporting event is now on. Known to Classics fans as an out of season stage race with minimal influence of what really matters and to the average Joe in the street as the only cycle race there is outside of the Olympics its more of a travelling circus than it deserves to be.
I'm not being curmudgeonly about this...I enjoy all 3 Grand Tours and the TDF is a grand shop window for the sport, but in reality the Giro is usually as intense a race as the Vuelta is boring with the TDF hovering between the two. Certainly the Tour has had elements of both over the years. Indurain riding like a bloody robot for 5 years in a row and Armstrong sucking the life out of it for another 7 has given us a string of very boring and predictable tours in the modern era. On the flip, there have been as many exciting moments to. Fignon losing by 8 seconds, Roche coming out of the mist to ambush the race and Little Tommy holding the yellow jersey through the Alps and against the odds are the sort of moments we all watch cycling for. This years issue is shaping up to be a cracker, but how I wish all those American websites would get over the fact that LA is a to55er and concentrate on things that matter instead of analysing his every fart and (typical yanks) missing the point by a mile.
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3 comments:
That's more like it :D
This has been one hell of a Tour so far. On the Brit front seeing what Cav, Wiggo and even Millar can do has been great, and that's to say nothing of the monosylabic sound bytes all three have given.
The escapes, catches, puntures, descents, crashes and spectacle are what make the Tour. I'm not sure if this really is the drugs leaving the sport, or if that's the official party line on the make again, but the Giro was fantastic, the Tour is better and the Vuelta will only be exciting if Contador loses to Ponce Wankstrom...
Vive le Tour.
True Dude
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