Crash Course: TdF

Excellent collection of gasps and ohs on the Star's sports page today. See the carnage here. The first four stages have all featured race-changing pile-ups with most notable disappointment being Saxo-Bank's Frank Schleck's tour-ending broken collar bone (in three places, requiring immediate surgery ... owww). Schleck was considered a GC contender, but looks like he'll be on an extended rest.

If you want to follow the tour, but don't have OLN, follow the live blogs on http://www.letour.fr/ or http://www.velonews.com/. Not the same as seeing it on screen, but better than nothing! Racing begins at 8:30am and goes until approximately 11:30. OLN usually does an evening show of race highlights, but this year it is notably absent.

Finally, check out this photo ... what's the caption? (Left: Alberto Contador. Right: Lance Armstrong. They get along like oil and vinegar.)

Oh, and by the way ...

Countdown to Le Tour!

Just under five more days to go until my annual interest in road cycling is sparked. Running from Saturday July 3rd to Sunday July 25th 2010, the 97th Tour de France will be made up of 1 prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,642 kilometres.

Stage Profiles:

• 1 prologue
• 9 flat stages
• 6 mountain stages and 3 summit finishes
• 4 medium mountain stages
• 1 individual time-trial stage (52 km)
  

By the way, the Prologue is in the Netherlands! Format? Individual Time Trial.

Rotterdam is an awesome Dutch city, although when you go there, you feel like you've been beamed out of Europe. Since it suffered so much damage during the war, it had to be rebuilt and hence feels much more modern than the cobblestones and steeple-centric layouts of its neighbouring cities.

The Dutch have hosted Le Grand Depart more times than any of France's other neighbouring countries. If you want to know why, read these few lines, written in L’Équipe in 1954, when the Grande Boucle decided to start outside French borders for the very first time: “All of the Netherlands seemed to have gathered on the roads of Wassenaar, Delft, Rotterdam… Tens of thousands of spectators in closed ranks, uninterrupted, for kilometres and kilometres, clapping, cheering for everything that had to do with the Tour, the cyclists, the motorcyclists, the cars that followed or that led… [In this way] they made a triumph of the first stage!”

Yep, that sounds like the Netherlands to me.

When the Tour gets rolling, I'll be at home in Port Elgin, so I will hopefully get to see the opening stages on a real TV instead of following the live updates from a computer screen. The one month of the year I wish I had cable!

Vive le tour!!

Floyd Landis admits to drug use and accuses Lance Armstrong

From The Star.

NEW YORK, N.Y.—Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis has admitted to systematic use of performance-enhancing drugs and accused seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong of involvement in doping, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping but had always denied cheating, sent a series of emails to cycling officials and sponsors acknowledging and detailing his long-term use of banned drugs, the newspaper said.

Read More ...

No one likes a quitter ...

Some words of wisdom from the boss himself in this famed cameo from "Dodgeball" ...



Tour drama continues as media speculates as to whether or not Contador will remain Astana's prima donna or if Lance will ever-so-innocently steal the spotlight. Stay tuned.

For now, I leave you with the star of Dodgeball, and the star of the Tour, hamming it up before the TTT.

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TdF

The Tour started this Saturday with a time trial out of Monaco. Although in my last post I noted that road is not my most favouritest thing, the soap opera that is the Tour de France is definitely excellent TV drama.

This year, seven time Tour champion Lance Armstrong is back from retirement, making bold claims that he's there to win. The only problem is that he's supposed to be there working for 2007 tour winner Alberto Contador, the 26 year old phenom who never got the chance to defend his title in 2008. That year's tour went to Carlos Sastre, a very nice Spaniard who's time had finally come after spending years working for other team leaders.

Today marks stage 3 of a 21 stage race run clockwise around France. Fabian Cancellara grabbed the yellow jersey on day one and he's got a good grip on it -- commentators say they expect him to keep it until at least stage 7. But it's the Green jersey that is the race to watch in these early days before the big mountain stages; right now, that belongs to Mark Cavendish.

For all the info on the race, standings and its rich history, check out the Tour's home on the web. My other source for tour coverage is http://www.velonews.com/ so be sure to stop there too. Live updates are provided at both sites so even if you don't have cable (like me), you can read the tour as it happens.

See you at the pub for the 8pm repeat coverage on OLN!

Cavendish takes Stage 2