Sure, He's Team Leader, But I'm Still Waaaaaaaaaaaay Better Than He Is: so just as Lance astonishingly concedes team leadership to Contador, as he should've done two weeks ago if he wasn't gonna make Bruyneel let Alberto out of his contract months back as he clearly deserved, our hero nonetheless manages to put Contador in his place with easily one of the most obnoxious quotes of the race: "If we ride into Paris with the yellow jersey in the team, I'm cool with that. I've got seven of them at home." No, really? I hadn't heard, you relentless egomaniacal self-obsessed goon! I mean, let's be honest, Contador is a tiresome pain in the !@@ with his non-stop shooting action (particularly thoughtless, one might suggest, after Oscar Freire almost got taken out entirely by some air-pistol-wielding wingnut), but not only does he get big points for pausing to pat the sweetly drooling St. Bernard at his podium presentation, at least he's not screaming "I won the Giro!" "I won the Vuelta!" "I won the Tour!" in every interview, when, as one of the few ever to do so, he could've entirely justifiably tattooed that on his naked butt and mooned the cameras with it the last two weeks. But yes, Lance, we know. No-one's ever contested that you're the best Tour de France rider in history, and to be fair, no-one ever should. And if it makes you feel better, o Mother Theresa of the Peloton, the entire planet is apparently completely capable of blocking out the umpteen times you've said in the last 6 months that you're coming back to the Tour de France solely--and inevitably--to win it. Ugh. Am I the only one longing for the halcyon days of the irritating non-stop People magazine updates about the latest Olsen twin he's snogging?
Don't Get Your Bike Shorts In a Twist, Everyone!: and, while Vs. impressively managed to barely mention the fact that Cavendish stiffed we love Thor Hushovd in a sprint and, rightly or wrongly (and of course you can guess who I'm gonna side with), was relegated right out of the green jersey competition, the big news from yesterday was of course George Hincapie being cheated out of the yellow jersey by the grotesque actions of Garmin-Slipstream, who, so far as I could tell, are basically guilty of trying not to get Christian Van de Velde jacked out of GC contention and setting up their own boy Farrar for the post-breakaway sprint. How dare they?! Natch, everybody and their mother--and particularly Bruyneel and Armstrong--immediately tossed Garmin under the bus, saying of course Astana was only up there driving the pace with no GC or sprint threat in sight to *help* poor George take the jersey as was their plan all along (and, because I'm sporting, I won't even point out that it took 7 years of endless subservience before Lance even allowed Hincapie a stage win), whereas Garmin clearly had some nefarious plan to hose somebody everybody likes out of nowhere to no benefit to themselves. The problem: no one has yet advanced any plausible reason whatsoever why Garmin would've wanted to keep Hincapie out of the maillot jaune, which he'd have no possible hope of keeping in the Alps anyway. And no, being 'a competing American squad' doesn't cut it--their DS Matt White is an Aussie for heck's sake! While we're at it--if Columbia was so freaked out at those five seconds, and so outraged that Garmin was pinching them as they watched the clock tick along, why the hell'd *they* of all squads pick up the pace, even if ever so slightly, for the sprint? Anyway, a crap ending for a great rider--but I don't see how Garmin is at fault. Do you?
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6 comments:
Wow, Lance actually admitted that he can't do it this year. CAN'T. Love it.
I did always think that there was no effin way he could possibly regain the kind of strength and conditioning he used to have in a single year. And I agree with him that even though he'll be even more ancient next year, that he'll also be closer to his best possible form, then.
The King is dead.
Thank you, racejunkie. Without posts like this I would start believing that I was going insane. Now I know there's at least one other person who recognizes all the BS of Armstrong.
And this crazy conspiracy theory about Garmin dreamed up by Bruyneel and Armstrong, which now has Stapleton believing, is just that, a crazy conspiracy theory based on little except the self-serving interest of Armstrong and Bruyneel to cover up their sandbagging of their former teammate.
Nah, LA is cooked. He's too old. About the best he can hope for is that he gets let win a stage in the tour this year, in return for promising not to come back.
Yeah, Columbia can cry me a river. 4 stage wins, Martin in white, a team built around a sprinter, only interested in green and no GC contender on the squad with any expectations of a yellow during the tour. And yet now they feel cheated out of the golden fleece? Boo hoo.
They didn't make many friends driving the pace in the first weeks flat stages, causing splits in the crosswinds and effectively keeping Wiggins out of yellow. Paybacks a bitch.
Garmin acted in the self-interests of a team that is trying to preserve its GC (shame on them, not). I don't know why everyone is placing the 5 seconds blame completely on them. Maybe if George had dug a little bit deeper he could've gotten those 5 seconds on his own instead of depending on rival teams to take care of it for him. I get that he's disappointed, I get that he's populat, but he's been around long enough to have a solid understanding of how this thing works.
You used to be funny. Now, you're as BORING & PATHETIC as Sastre.
"There are cyclists CONSPIRING to keep me from winning the Tour this year". Wah, wah, wah.
But, as much as I dislike Sastre, I would PAY to see him fly past Contabitch on the Ventoux.
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