Last time on ITV. Amazing stat they have just shown in the show. Between them Pogarcar and Vingegaard have won the last 4 tours. Thy compared the times and collated them over the 4 years. Can you believe that after 32,000 km of racing Vingegaard would have a lead of 3 seconds over Pogacar. Quite unbelievable.
End of an era regarding (free to air) TV coverage , started on Channel 4 in 1986 I remember watching the half hour highlights every night with about 20 minutes of actual racing
Really looking forward to this years tour. Always followed the Tour over the years since the days of Tommy Simpson. But over recent years have got interested more and more with the increased exposure on YouTube etc. Enjoyed the Criterion De Dauphine and the Giro this year, the Giro especially since it saw the emergence of Isaac Del Toro the Mexican from Baja Mexico especially since we have a home there.
Watched the Greg Le Mond documentary this morning, well worth a watch The tagline at the end, the only (US) American to win the Tour de France...
I’m in no way defending Lance Armstrong or anyone else specifically, but I sometimes wonder what the results would be if there was a way of testing previous champions’ blood retrospectively. Even without one I believe that Mercx, Anquetil and Contador were all punished in their day for talking performance enhancing drugs. Indurain iirc was never punished, but his style was what you’d expect of someone taking EPO, and his retirement just happened to coincide with an effective test for it starting to be used. The tour stops to remember Tom Simpson dying of heart failure during the race, without usually mentioning that even at the time this was widely reported to be caused by the amphetamines he’d just taken, and still had the vials of in his jersey pocket. I love the event, despite all that, but it’s always been an ‘arms race’ between the drugs and the testers. To the point where I’ve heard someone within the sport say that he thought it would actually be safer to just allow any and all drugs and leave the teams to manage the consequences without having to go through the rigmarole of pretending that there’s nothing dodgy involved when the rider ends up in A&E. Am I still watching it? 100%
I watched a documentary about Eddy Mercx and the way he used to destroy the field . It's hard to believe he wasn't taking anything.
Interesting race yesterday. The sprint finish by Alpecin and Jasper Phillipsen was a master class. And Jonas Vinnegard and Visma Leasa seemed pretty happy with themselves for splitting the peloton up and gaining time on Rogolic and Evenapol.
Met a cyclist last weekend, he was on holiday and planning to do Hull to Inverness in 3 days. He said a typical day would be 200 to 250km and then sometimes camping overnight. Didn't seem like much of a holiday to me.
Matthew VdPoel was immense today. Everything set up for Pog and he held him off.. If you have any interest. Theres a female You Tuber and amateur cyclist (Amy's Cycle Adventures) for charity, she is riding all stages of the mens TDF as well as riding between the stage ends and starts. Immense achievement if she pulls it off.
Todays race showed that the favorites were interested in establishing themselves in pole position right from the off. Van der Poel, Tadej and Jonas 1 2 3. No surprise that Van der Poel won the sprint finish between the 3. Remains to be seen if he can keep the yellow though suspect not. Alpecin have now won 2 on the trot. No surprise since the team use the Alpecin cafeine infused hair shampoo. Dont they test for that.
Longest day in the saddle today, distance wise 209k...Everything from now is a bonus... I still miss Bauke Mollena. Mention of his name always made me chuckle.
