Still waking up in the middle of the night scaring the crap out of your partner yelling "Allez! Allez!"? Bereft at the thought of a day without the maillot jaune? Obsessively checking French real estate listings for decaying medieval chateaux-for-sale? Yeah, well normally I'd say me neither, because it's freakin' *September*, but because this is also 2020, the Biggest Cycling %^&*show On Record, here we are. Still, messed up as this year is, we haven't yet devolved into *total* animals, so tilt yer beret, wave yer croissant, and raise a Champagne toast to Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2020 Tour de France racejunkie Awards! Prizes--I swear--for anyone desperate and/or craven enough to claim them: (1) a dashing custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap; (2) a passel o' handsome racejunkie stickers to defile yer laptop, yer refrigerator, or yer face; and (3) a custom-ordered random statuary tchotchke because frankly, it's still not safe enough here for me to spend hours rummaging through discarded boy-band action figures and 1000-piece puzzles with 2 pieces missing to find you something inappropriate at a local thrift store. Oh right, and eternal infamy. So without further ado, let's get moving on our annual Tour de France adieu!
I'm Not Crying, You're Crying Award of 2020 (Oh Hell, I Am Too Crying): Sam Bennett's charmingly halting, weepy post-race inaugural Tour de France stage-win interview, Stage 10. Not only did he grab the sprint, but he took--and never gave back--the coveted Peter Sagan Green Jersey as well. Close second, except I didn't want to pile on the poor guy any more: Rogla's stunned collapse at the end of the penultimate-day time trial, with his loyal teammates folding consolingly around him like scrawny-but-spiritually-fluffy fleece blankets. Waaaaaaaaaaah!
Disaster Stage of 2020: of course, as a loyal Landa fan, it's when he lost 1:21 in a !@#$in' crosswind that everyone on Bahrain should've seen coming from a thousand kilometers away !@#dammit. But we officially reached peak 2020 right on Stage 1, where the wet roads turned into skating rinks and half the freakin' field crashed out, including key Landa assist Rafa Valls, reliable stage winner Degenstache, and ever-fighting Philippe Gilbert. Add poor visibility, a bubble-spewing soap sponsor, and the white lines on the road apparently painted with axle grease, and it just doesn't get any better (or worse) than that. 2021, get a move on already, we're *done* with this !@#$ !
The Fast and The Furious Award: okay, let's get down to brass tacks (but, y'know, hopefully not the kind that assclown threw down on the actual road in front of poor Cadel Evans). *Every* #$%damn climb, Pogacar or some schmuck is shattering mountain speed records previously achieved only by a team director personally hanging out the car helpfully holding up a drug-stuffed IV running right into some weasel's !@# 6 hours straight for the cameras. I mean, when you've just smacked down 2003 Alexander Vinokourov, you *know* some !@#$'s going down. Let's just hope it's merely, well, a nice hearty dinner and a relaxing massage every night!
Fan !@#%wit Award: in an ordinary year, I'd be awarding this to the guardians of a meandering dog or careening toddler, a selfie-stick wielder, or some urine-tossing psychopath. And I was about to award this collectively to the maskless (or even more incomprehensibly, masked but only *under their mouths and noses*) eejits running screaming alongside terrified riders in the middle of a freakin' *pandemic.* But we actually had to wait til nearly the end this time, when some reckless nutwhack leapt out into the middle of the course past the barriers just meters from the line and seconds away from a charging peloton. Luckily, thanks to some dude who went all Bernard Hinault on his !@#, the eejit was safely dispatched and, miraculously, no spindly rider bodies were broken. FFS, can we just go back to the eye-blinding camera-whores in their indiscreet neon speedos next year?
Not-A-Crash o' the Tour: fabulously impressive emerging breakaway artist/Tour de France newb EF's Neilson Powless, who, like countless others before him, slightly misjudged a corner on a switchback descent, but, instead of wiping out to near-certain catastrophic bodily injury, smoothly rolled over the grass into a roadside fan's tailgate party, kicked back with a beer and some charcuterie, and continued, unruffled, on his way. Panache!
Where's Peto? Award: c'mon--when he wasn't tattooed into the green jersey this year, and with his front wheel stuck disconsolately to the ground, *you* couldn't pick Sagan outta the peloton in his mere-mortal Bora kit either. Nine years of total dominance quietly down the sink. There's always 2021, Peto--if you can get by Bennett first! Corollary Old Man of the Mountain Prize: the usually hyper-active Alejandro Valverde, adrift without a teammate to bushwhack this year, stealthily ticking his way into 12th place. But guess who won the Team Classification *again*, beeyotches?
Class Act o' the Tour: Yep, 2019 Vuelta champ (and did you know he used to be a ski jumper?) Primoz Roglic, unreservedly expressing both his personal devastation and complete happiness for his jailbait last-minute Tour de France-winning countryman, Tadej Pogacar, both immediately after the gut-wrenching decisive individual time trial, and warmly right in front of the cameras on the highest-profile stage in cycling, the Champs-Elysees. Waaaaaaaaaah!
*That's* Who They !@#damn Busted? Award: So a pack of raging giant Murder Hornets the size of linebackers stomps up the climbs for 21 straight stages in hammering superhuman lockstep at a pace not remotely seen since the relentless Armstrong-era Discovery train, a 21-year old kid who was ordered off the bike for a week because he was training so well shatters the penultimate day's time trial by like a minute and takes the overall win on his first-ever Tour, and who do the crack UCI narcs finally bust? That's right, this year's equivalent of popping a Master's rider for buying 1st-gen EPO off the internet, Nairo !#$%in' Quintana, who, by Grand Tour winner standards, *sucked* this year. Yap, doping's bad, yap--but couldn't you have left the wee thing a *little* dignity?
Unsung Sea Change o' 2020: Sure, it was a little harder to tell behind the masks, but didja notice that podium babes now come in *two* genders, albeit one a little more scantily-clad than the other? Equal opportunity T&A--now *that's* progress!
Nice Try But No Cigar Award: Bahrain's much-derided, if undeniably gutsy, tactics on Stage 17. Sure, they maybe took off a col too early, and our brave Mikel Landa was left alone and nearly broken at day's end. But he's an ex- (and ever-) Carrot, dammit, so if you've got a problem with it, even if you're actually correct, you can just !@#$ right off into the sunset. Aupa (in 2021) Mikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!
Stop! In the Name of Love! (Before You Break Your Face) Prize: Tony Martin's brave, if unsuccessful, arms-wide attempt to slow down the peloton on a dangerous descent, just before Astana went ahead anyway, and, in a related Karma's a !@#$, !@#$ ! Prize, skidding (which was NOT the dear Izagirres' fault) great GC hope Miguel Angel Lopez face-first into a road sign on Stage 1. Luckily, naught was damaged but his dignity, and the race proceeded just as cautiously as Martin's ill-fated gesture had intended. Oh Cancellara, where *are* you where the etiquette-disgracing peloton needs you?
Break-Out Star of 2020: look, Powless was amazing. But damned if Marc Hirschi didn't stick it out after a string of heroic near-misses til he finally bagged his win in dramatic solo-break fashion on stage 12. Keep your eyes on this kid--there's sure to be more where that came from!
Domestique o' the Race: by any other measure, team Skineos' Tour was a disaster. With defending champ Egan Bernal going gently into that good night, and all that desperate work for nothing, Michal Kwiatkowski, who spent the entire Tour and then in particular all day Stage 18 diligently hauling backup-GC Richard Carapaz up mountains and down, was justly awarded a well-deserved, arm in arm stage win for his efforts. Is it me, or is everyone who ever did a hard day's work for Lance Armstrong for barely a thank-you feeling pretty pissed off right now?
Punk-!@# Move o' the Race: Last but not least: c'mon, a little argy-bargy in the sprints--hell, sometimes all-out fisticuffs--is to be expected. But with those damn barriers with the iron spikes sticking out of the basis increasingly the cause of massive bodily injury, what you *don't* need is some jackwagon veering way off his line at the last possible second, jamming his shoulder into yer bod, and nearly taking you down in a jumble of shattered bikes, bones, and dreams. Peter Sagan, we *know* you were getting desperate by Stage 11--but for heck's sake, leave Wout van Aert out of it!
Well fans, them's my picks for this year. Now riders, slap on your masks, start looking ahead to the...Giro?!, and try not to win again next year!
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