Tour Awards
Categories: Sermons
I am pretty stoked that Sastre was able to hold off Cadel in the final TT. Cadel, man if you are gonna follow wheels the best you can hope for is 2nd. Ya I know his team sucked the big one but he should have been driving it for all he was worth on Alpe d’Huez. No way he should have let him get that much time without going all out to at least try and bring some seconds back. He rode the entire Tour defensively. As much as Sastre went out and took the yellow jersey, Evans let him do it.
Anyway here are the official Big Ring awards for le Tour:
The Chuck D Don’t Believe The Hype Award: The run away winner here is Alejandro Valverde. After scaring the hell out of every one at LBL and Dauphine many (me included) thought he would run wild in France. His Stage 1 V did little to dispute that prediction. What no one saw coming was his meltdown on the Hautacam which truely put him in the Segway category of can’t miss, idiot proof, predictions that did miss. Adios podium!
Cippo Who?/Petacchi is a Pansy Award: Former ballroom dancer (?) Mark Cavendish sashayed across the finish line to the tune of 4 stage wins. Ya, he didn’t make the Last Tango in Paris, but he is only 22 and his best years and a Green jersey are coming.Â
The Wedding Crashers: I am sure when ASO invited Garmin/Chipotle they were thinking they were a novelty act with a strong anti drug message that would sit quietly in the pack and stay out of the way of the “real” racing. Vaughters and Co responded like Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn cutting in line at the open bar. Had it not been for an untimely crash Vande Velde might have run off with the new bride and the keys to the honeymoon suite.
The WTF? Award: Bernard Kohl was not a name I heard anyone mention as a podium contender, yet after 3 weeks of wondering when he will come to his senses and crack he never did. Honorable mention to Stefan Schumacher for proving his 1st TT win was no fluke by going out and winning the 2nd one as well. Seriously WTF?
The Big Ring Award: The whole CSC team wins this one. Sastre got to stand on the final podium but the selfless riding of the entire CSC team got him there. The damage Cancellara did on the Alpe d’Huez stage was jaw dropping. Schleck 1 and Schleck 2 were nails in the mountains. Frank Schleck could have just as easy ended up in Yellow that day but Sastre made the move that Cadel didn’t follow. Bad for Cadel, good for Sastre and CSC.
i dont like him more than you, he follows wheels because thats all he can do, im sure if he had more watts he would be up the road. stop with the “he sitting in mentality” hes not. gram says hes not a doper. he will never win. he will never beat the dopers, he will always look like hes waiting.
hes not.
get over it.
glad he didnt win
sly
who is gram?
hes the guy in canberra at the sports institute of australia with 15 years of blood work with cadel and knows a few things about doping and covering it up.
I don’t buy the everyone is doping excuse. If everyone was doping Ricco would not have ridden away from those guys so easy. On Alpe d’Huez I didn’t see a guy who was fighting to limit time loses to Sastre, I saw a guy who was content to let others set the pace until it was too late. When Sastre went he sat there, he followed wheels until about 3 K to go. Too late.
Valverde crashed pretty hard in Stage 5 and banged up his knees and shoulder … gotta wonder if that affected his ability to climb the Hautacam on Stage 10.
Maybe that stage came too soon after the crash; maybe it didn’t and he just blew up. But once he did, he seemed like he gave up, which is decidedly not Big Ring.
And I’m with the Rev on Cadel … he’s a wheelsucker, and as long as he is, he’ll never win, and rightly so. He had the opportunity to take the Tour by the balls several times, not least of which was the final TT, and he didn’t. Sastre deserves the win big time.
Maybe the lack of super-dopers is why Sastre finally won, Kohl, VandeVelde, etc. put up the performances they did. The true talent had a chance to shine for a change.
First of all, allow my family recognize a person’s command during this matter. Even though this is certainly brand new , nevertheless soon after registering your site, this intellect has exploded extensively. Allow all of us to take hold of one’s rss to help keep in touch with at all probable messages Sincere understand but will pass it on to help admirers and my private are living members