Tour de France

but at least you cubicle jockeys sneaking a peek at the race from the office

Guilty as charged.

I've been slacking on the photos.

Servais Knaven of The Netherlands rides to victory after breaking away from his 10-men breakaway group during the 17th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Dax and Bordeaux, southwestern France, Thursday, July 24, 2003. Knaven won the stage, Lance Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, retains the overall lead of the race.

Frenchman Richard Virenque puts on the best climber's dotted jersey after the 17th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Dax and Bordeaux, southwestern France, Thursday, July 24, 2003.

The pack, with overall leader Lance Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, seen at center, speeds past Landes shepperds wearing their traditional outfit and standing on stilts, outside Sore, during the 17th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Dax and Bordeaux, southwestern France, Thursday, July 24, 2003.

Think that collarbone hurts?

Tyler Hamilton

I wondered if he would raise both arms in victory. The answer, yes. The boy's a trooper.

USA's rider Tyler Hamilton reacts as he wins the 16th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Pau and Bayonne, southwestern France, Wednesday, July 23, 2003.

German cyclist Jan Ullrich laughs before a training session during a rest day of the 90th Tour de France.

Thanks for posting the photos. I was out of town last night. On the plus side, I did get to see more TdF coverage on TV this weekend then I had previous to now. Great tour. That time trial where Ullrich fell makes you wonder what could have happened.

I'm pretty thrilled that I got to see both Big Mig and Lance complete their 5-in-a-row Tour performances. Lance sez he'll be back next year, maybe for an unprecedented 6th?

FINAL OVERALL RESULTS
1 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 83h 41' 12"
2 ULLRICH Jan GER TBI at 01' 01"
3 VINOKOUROV Alexandre KAZ TEL at 04' 14"
4 HAMILTON Tyler USA CSC at 06' 17"
5 ZUBELDIA Haimar ESP EUS at 06' 51"
6 MAYO Iban ESP EUS at 07' 06"
7 BASSO Ivan ITA FAS at 10' 12"
8 MOREAU Christophe FRA C.A at 12' 28"
9 SASTRE Carlos ESP CSC at 18' 49"
10 MANCEBO Francisco ESP BAN at 19' 15"

Lance Joins ‘The Club

And then there were five. Lance Armstrong may have lost 15 seconds of his overall lead on Jan Ullrich in the frantic final kilometer of the parade stage from Ville-D’Avray to the Avenue Champs Elysees, but that does not matter. He is the champion of five Tours de France. The centenary Tour provided the perfect setting for the Texan US Postal rider to join ‘The Club’ of five riders who have each won this event five times.
Armstrong joins Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain; an exclusive collective with five title each. And while he is bound to celebrate that victory tonight, it’s likely that his preparation for a sixth title will begin tomorrow.
That’s the sort of rider he is. Enjoy the moment but never forget what is next on the agenda. It’s a policy which has helped him dominate the Tour since 1999. This year, however, his victory wasn’t a simple matter of following a formula. He was pushed all the way by the 1997 champion Jan Ullrich. The German has never finished worse than second. This year he was only one minute and one second behind the champion. It’s the third time he’s finished as the runner-up to Armstrong. It’s a title he is going to try and rid himself of, despite the fact that he was second to both Bjarne Riis and Marco Pantani before the start of the Armstrong era.
Had there not been a team time trial, that may have been different. Had he not fallen in the 19th stage time trial, the 15 seconds he gained on Armstrong may have been more important than they were today. Had his rhythm not been upset when he waited for a fallen comrade on the early slopes of the climb to Luz Ardiden, it’s possible he would have been more than the rider who pushed Lance all the way in the centenary Tour. But those could-have-been factors matter no more. Armstrong is the champion. Again!
Ullrich, of people, had to accept that he would ride the 20th stage in relative anonymity. He was second to the rider who has controlled the Tour since coming back from cancer in the 1999 Tour. And Lance was the man who demanded the attention of the media in the early, celebratory kilometers of today’s stage. Lance could afford to sip champagne in the first hour. He raised a plastic cup and declared “Cheers France!” into the lens of a television camera.
Such is the tradition of the final stage. Light-hearted fun overtakes the tension of the preceding three weeks and then comes the rush for the finish line by the race’s best sprinters.
And it was the final sprint which created the second tale of today’s stage. For the third successive year, the green jersey classification – that of the best sprinter in the race – had to be determined in the final rush to the line. Jean-Patrick Nazon was better than everyone. He had spent a day in the yellow jersey earlier in the 2003 race. A big rush. But does it compare to beating the likes of Baden Cooke, Robbie McEwen and Erik Zabel in a sprint on the Champs Elysees? Only Jean-Patrick knows. He won in style and celebrated accordingly. He too was fairly anonymous despite his success.
Behind the stage winner was a battle for the green jersey. Only two points separated McEwen and Cooke at the start of the day. Cooke worked back into the virtual lead by winning the first intermediate sprint, before McEwen charged ahead at the second. The final sprint would determine the sprint king. Today it was Cooke. By a matter of five centimeters, but does the FDJeux.com rider care who close it was? Not one bit. His manager Marc Madiot predicted the outcome two days earlier: “Dimanche! Champs Elysees! Baam!” That was how the centenary Tour finished. Baden is now the second Australian to have won the green jersey.
We cannot end this summary without a mention of the King of the Mountains. Richard Virenque came to the Tour with one ambition: a sixth successive title in the climbing classification. He earned that with his typical strength and cunning, but he also earned a stage win and a day in yellow for his effort. He joins Federico Bahamontes and Lucien van Impe as the riders to each earn six mountain titles in the Tour.
Alexandre Vinokourov, who became the first Kazakh in history to stand on the Tour podium (in third place) and Denis Menchov cannot be ignored. Menchov controlled the best young rider classification with such gusto that his victory was never in doubt. His lead in the under-25 category was over 40 minute clear of his nearest rival. And ‘Vino’? His third may have been behind two Tour greats, but he is the rider of the season. He can win stage races in March, Classics in April and a stage in the Tour. He has done all those things in 2003 while, at the same time, establishing a foundation to ensure that the death of his best friend, Andrei Kivilev (who finished fourth in the Tour only two years ago) will never be forgotten.
Oh, the centenary Tour. It was meant to be a celebration of cycling, but who would have thought it would have all the drama that these three weeks in July have provided? It was a dream of the promoters, now it’s a reality.

I believe they said it was the fastest pace ever, even including short stints like the prologue.

Do you speak Spanish?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and his wife are separated and planning to divorce, according to a published report.

Armstrong told the Austin American-Statesman in Thursday's editions that he and wife Kristin separated two weeks ago, soon after they moved back to Austin from their European home in Girona, Spain. The couple is currently in mediation to reach a divorce settlement, while maintaining separate homes in Central Austin.

"It's an unfortunate situation,'' said Kristin Armstrong, 32. "We are making the best of it for the sake of our kids.''

The move follows five years of marriage and a separation in late January that was announced publicly one month later. The 31-year-old cyclist, who grabbed his record-tying fifth straight victory in cycling's most prestigious race this summer, later agreed to enter counseling in an effort to salvage their marriage.

Armstrong's wife and children -- 3-year-old Luke and 22-month-old twins Isabelle and Grace -- were with the cyclist in Paris on July 27 to celebrate his Tour victory. They left Paris together and spent time on a family vacation before returning to Austin late last month.

"We both have (legal) representation, and we're doing this peacefully,'' the cyclist said Wednesday. "The craziest thing is, we're closer now and better friends than ever before. We're truly committed to maintaining a good relationship, but not a marriage.''

Armstrong, along with his children, tossed a coin before Sunday's season opener for the University of Texas football team at Royal-Memorial Stadium. It was his first public appearance in Austin since the Tour victory. His wife did not accompany Armstrong and the children.

Armstrong, also a victor over testicular cancer, met his wife in January 1997, just weeks after he had completed intense chemotherapy to treat an advanced stage of the disease. The two started dating in June 1997 and were married 11 months later. Because Lance's cancer treatments could have made him sterile, he had banked his sperm before his chemotherapy.

All three children were born through in vitro fertilization. Luke was born in October 1999, three months after Lance won his first Tour. The twins were born in November 2001. Lance and Kristin Armstrong said they will remain in Austin after the divorce.

"The kids are our first priority,'' said the cyclist. "We're also going to be respectful of each other. Neither of us wants to get in the situation where when we drop off the kids, we can't look at each other.''

Kristin Armstrong earlier said several events related to her husband's celebrity and cancer comeback had strained the marriage. The Armstrongs' announcement came on the same day the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously congratulated him on his latest Tour victory.

"This distinguished body is recognizing the inspirational Lance Armstrong and his unbelievable courage, grit and determination,'' U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said.

We saw that on the news today Monika! Very sad.

Any new details on Pantani's death? I haven't had time to look.

Lance hints at retirement.

Bike porn. Drool....

Is it just me, or is the list of items for sale at the bike shop a little too similar to the list at the S&M shop??

Books/Video/CD ROM
Cables
Cages and Bottles
Chains
Cleaners
Clothing - Gloves
Clothing - Men's
Clothing - Women's
Cranks
Frames
Gift Items
Grips/Bar Tape
Handlebars
Heart Monitors
Helmets
Hydration Systems
Lights
Locks
Lubricants
Pumps
Racks
Rims/Spokes/Nipples
Saddles
Safety Products
Shoes
Skewers
Storage Racks
Therapy
Tires
Tools
Travel Case
Tubes

No wonder I like biking so much!

Stage 3 Results


1 NAZON Jean-Patrick FRA A2R in 4h 36' 45"

2 ZABEL Erik GER TMO at 00' 00"

3 MC EWEN Robbie AUS LOT at 00' 00"

4 BOONEN Tom BEL QSD at 00' 00"

5 KIRCHEN Kim LUX FAS at 00' 00"

6 HONDO Danilo GER GST at 00' 00"

7 KIRSIPUU Jaan EST A2R at 00' 00"

8 BERTOLINI Alessandro ITA ALB at 00' 00"

9 BALDATO Fabio ITA ALB at 00' 00"

10 GUTIERREZ José Enrique ESP PHO at 00' 00"


Also:
18 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 00' 05"

54 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP at 00' 05"

Overall Standings through Stage 3



1 MC EWEN Robbie AUS LOT in 13h 42' 34"

2 CANCELLARA Fabian SUI FAS at 00' 01"

3 VOIGT Jens GER CSC at 00' 09"

4 NAZON Jean-Patrick FRA A2R at 00' 12"

5 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP at 00' 16"

Also:
9 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 00' 24"

18 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 00' 31"

19 LANDIS Floyd USA USP at 00' 32"

20 HAMILTON Tyler USA PHO at 00' 32"

Looks like a tough day for Iban Mayo.  Too bad, he could have made things interesting.  The same is true of last year's White Jersey winner Denis Menchov.  And a very strong performance from Jan Ullrich to place at 18, but it didn't buy him any time over Lance.  Official summary is below:

McEwen In Yellow After A Classic Day On Tour

Two sections of cobbled roads that are more a part of the Spring Classics than the Tour de France shaped the third stage. But the dreaded stones themselves aren't what shaped this eventful day of racing. Rather it was more the prospect of riding 3,900 meters of the dreaded ‘pave’ that made the action so frenetic.
“The speed on the cobbles wasn’t the problem,” confirmed one of the day’s big winners, Robbie McEwen. “It was the speed beforehand that made it hard.” Fear can do strange things to a race. And while the Australian celebrated his status as the new overall leader of the Tour, others lamented how close they came to surviving the dreaded pave.
Yesterday’s hero Thor Hushovd was amongst the losers. His tenure in yellow was never going to last too long but a crash at the 144km mark ensured it was over even before the team time trial of stage four. No, he didn't fall in the crash, but he was held up and his time in 'jaune' was effectively over.
There were others who lost out because of the anxiety of the approach to the “secteur pave de Erre”. Iban Mayo, Christophe Moreau and Denis Menchov – all riders who have the potential to challenge for the overall title – were part of what is likely to become known as 'The Second Group Of Stage Three'.
The crash itself claimed some victims. Marco Velo snapped a collarbone and his Tour ended in the gutter two kilometers before the first section of cobbles. And while others were more bruised than broken, they suffered a loss of almost four minutes because of the delay at the 144km mark.
One beautiful aspect of the Tour is the diverse terrain on offer for the stages. From the rolling hills of the Ardennes to the heralded ‘Muur’ in Gerardsbergen which was also a feature of stage three and is normally a crucial part of the one-day Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) in April, there has already been a variety of challenges for the peloton. But there was nothing beautiful about the stage for Mayo et al. Once they’d been delayed by the crash, there was little hope of recovering the time they lost.
Half the field coped with the carnage caused by the cobbles. The others played catch-up.
It’s a similar scene to stage three in 1999 when a crash on the Passage de Gois spoiled the hopes of riders like Alex Zulle, the rider who would eventually finished the Tour in second place overall. Mayo arrived at the start as one of the main hopes. Now he’s way down the classification all because of the fear of what lay ahead and a touch of wheels at the wrong time.
Try as the Euskaltel team did to stay up front, they simply didn’t have the conviction of US Postal, T-Mobile and Phonak who insisted on maintaining the place they’d muscled their way into on the approach of the pave. Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton were all part of the lucky half of the peloton. And it means their quest for the title hasn’t been disrupted and they can now focus on building on their advantage over Mayo in the team time trial from Cambrai to Arras.
In the meantime, there is one night that McEwen can enjoy what he dubbed a “consolation”. The yellow jersey might be the dream of most riders but Robbie is prone to seeing things a little differently. He finished the stage in third place (behind Jean-Patrick Nazon and Erik Zabel) after hitting out early in the final sprint. And he insists that he didn’t achieve his objectives. “I would have preferred to win the stage,” he said.
“When I found a gap I decided to go,” he concluded about the final rush to the line. “Normally the temptation is to sit up when you know you’ve been passed. But I knew that the jersey was there to be taken. I kept my head down and ended up with a bit of a consolation.” He may have missed out on throwing another salute but a day in yellow isn’t a bad way at all to end a Classics-style day on the Tour.

I know.  I just hate to see people who get burned in the early stages through no fault of their own.  Makes you wonder what could have been.

And hey, Sparky.  Check that pic of Lance in the header of this thread.  It's got http://www.berryfloor.com/all over his uniform.