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Le Tour de France!!

Chaos Butterfly

Chaos Butterfly

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Oct 16, 2000
Messages
10,382
So... anyone been watching this?

Prologue on Saturday followed by the first stage on Sunday... was pretty damn interesting.

Robbie McEwen getting up to win in a bunch sprint after being off the back of the peloton after a crash with ~20km to go. The peloton were travelling faster than they had been all day, and he and his team manage to get themselves back in contact, then make their way through a bunch of about 150 riders which tends to block the road entirely most of the time, then Robbie pops up right at the end in the bunch sprint and takes the stage win!

Completely unexpected.

I was sitting in the lounge room watching, thinking, yeah, just maybe, maybe he will come through, but the commentators had stopped talking about him because they couldn't see him, and the last that we'd heard about him was that he had joined the back of the peloton with ~6km to go, and the peloton was quite spread out at the time, so I thought, nah, no chance... but then, bang POW he wins :)

Any other le Tour fans here?

CB :)
 
i love the tour. i started watching it in earnest about 4 years ago when i realised there was a lot more strategy involved than simply being the fastest cyclist.

also, i'm a huge fan of france and the tour shows off a lot of beautiful french countryside.

alasdair
 
Well we've officially hit the mountains... tonights stage should be fantastic, there should be some moves by the big players. Looking forward to it :)
 
Well that was chaos on the roads...

Mostly for the Aussies though :(

Michael Rogers had a bad crash and dislocated his shoulder, when he was basically the leader on the road...

Stuart O'Grady broke a hell of a lot of ribs in a nasty fall and Robbie McEwen who had been riding injured since a crash in the 1st stage failed to complete the stage within the time limit...

There were a few other withdrawals as well... all in all I think all the riders know that the Tour has really started now.

As they say, you can't win the tour in a day, but you can definitely lose it...
 
as an passive watcher: I can say american coverage has been terrible this year :(
 
We are lucky over here where we get live coverage - although we do miss the first hour or two, which isn't too bad as generally not too much happens around then...

I guess now that Lance isn't around in the Tour, and the other Americans, although they are contenders for the title, aren't outright favourites or have anywhere near the chance of domination that Lance had, it seems that people don't care as much... everyone loves a winner though...
 
i watched the last 6 tour de frances and im definitely not paying very much attention this year. i saw rassmussen jump to the top though
 
I hate how the only american channel to show the tour (versus) seems to think its a good idea to take commercial breaks every 15 minutes, even while an attack or important section may be on. I guess i've gotten too used to watching it in france, where its 4 straight hours, uninterrupted.

And I'm trying to watch it as best as i can, but it's difficult with it being relatively early in the day. I did enjoy todays course though. Moreau was one hell of a competitor.

I cannot wait for the Pyrenees.
 
What are some good links for internet coverage?
Click to expand...

www.letour.fr - this is the official tour de france website

www.sbs.com.au - this is the website for the Australian TV station that shows coverage of the tour - they have some good stuff there apparently :)

There are probably heaps more out there, but those should help :)
 
I love Le Tour! Unfortunately, I failed to sign up for a cable package which includes OLN when I moved, the station which covers the Tour here. :(

I'm toggling between some free live streaming links here for now, while they last.
 
Well now that is a fucking shake up!!

Vinokourov tests positive to an illegal blood transfusion after winning the time trial a couple of days ago, and the entire Astana team are dumped from the tour!

I guess that could justify the opinion that all cyclists are dodgy cheats.

I always want to give the benefit of the doubt, but when you continue to hear story after story, scandal after scandal, it becomes difficult to deny it.

CB :(
 
^
My gf has been really into the Tour, so I've been watching a bit. I was kinda cheering for Astana; very sad to see them out :(
 
I think that the Kazakhstan government will now have a review of their commitment to the Astana cycling team... which again is a sad thing. The team is a great thing for Kazakhstan... I think they may start asking vino some very tough questions...
 
Um there's always been doping in the Tour de France throughout the history of it. It's nothing new. It's more about how not to get caught! It's the forefront of sports doping - always has been.

Half the scientist is sports medicine try and work out how to come up with new undectectable doping concepts and the other half work to detect them. 70's saw Amphetamines being used, 80's steroids, 90's epo, 00's ???? I'm sure many teams are doping somehow or using it in pre-season training but masking it very well or the technology they are using hasnt been discovered yet.

Sad to see the entire Astana team quit as a result of Vino being kicked out - I really liked that team.

Anyway - I believe taht half the riders could be involved in doping somehow.

I hope Cadel can come back - i dont know if he will though. Rasmussen and contador look strong.


For anyone who would like to stream iot, have a look at the streaming links down the page towards the right http://www.cyclingfans.com/
 
I don't know much about cycling. However, why do people dope in it? Is there big prize money?
 
^^

Cycling is fucking huge in Europe.

To put it in perspective, Alexander Vinokourov was on about $1mill a year or so.

The Tour de France is the biggest and hardest cycling event in the world, the prestige (and sponsorship deals) that you get from winning it is huge.

Because of the ridiculous difficulty of the tour, and cycling in general, a lot of cyclists cheat by using banned substance, or illegal blood transfusions etc. This gives them a boost in performance and increases their chances of winning...

Anyway, back to the NEXT tour de france scandal, Rasmussen has been sacked by his team, and kicked off the tour! The yellow jersey has been kicked out!! There was also another positive test from one of the riders on the Cofidis team... It was also reported that Vino had tested positive not once, but twice! After the time trial, and after his other stage win.

It now looks like Cadel will have a much better chance of winning as he is now sitting in 2nd only 1:45 or so down on Contador, with the time trial coming up on Saturday. Its going to be an awesome finish to a ridiculously tarnished tour...
 
Yes this is getting crazy. I think there is a big movement in teh sport to clean itself up and teams are the ones expelling cyclist before they bring shame to the team etc. Seems like for once they are taking a zero tolerance.

Fuckin crazy to see Rasmussen out but he had already been kicked out of the Danish national team and now his own team has kicked him. He failed to make himself available for a random drugs test in June and said he was in Mexico (his gfs familya re from there) when really he was in Italy. Quite suspect if you ask me, June been so close to the Tour.

Hopefully this is sending shockwaves through the sport that doping will no longer be tolerated, not even by your own team!

Cadel has a better chance now but even if he does make up time against Contador which he can in the timetrial, all these shennanigans will spoil any victory I feel.
 
He would have attacked Evans and Evans would have been there trying to hang on in the mountains.
 
^^

Yep. Anyone who has his insane acceleration on the hills, is going to attack WHOEVER is up there with him.

CB.
 
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