Thanks to everyone for helping celebrate Jacob's birthday, he had a blast!
Lance Armstrong won yet another Tour de France, his fifth in a row. Of course anyone who followed this year's edition knows that it was not really "yet another" race, as it was by far the most exciting, entertaining, and closest race in many years. I am hoping that one day we learn the "other problems" that Armstrong alluded to in various interviews (I've heard it might be back problems). Also, I can't wait for his new book, Every Second Counts, to come out. You can read the first chapter here.
By the way, Lance still has some racing left in him this season. He won the Altstad-Kriterium in Austria yesterday, and according to his website, he will be racing in the German Karlsruhe 2-man Time Trial on August 2nd. His site also mentions that he and Jan Ullrich will square off against each other (as well as other riders) in the 1-day World Cup event, the Championship of Zurich on August 17th.
Finally, don't miss the "Defining Moments of the 2003 Tour" show on OLN this Thursday at 8PM ET/PT. It features an exclusive interview with Lance.
After Saturday's final Time Trial, I think they will either be neck and neck, or Lance will have added another minute or so to his lead. If he has added another minute to his lead, then I think Sunday's stage is a nice slow ride into Paris, but if they are neck and neck, how exciting would it be to see these two great cyclists go head-to-head, marking each other all the way into Paris? How about USPS and Ullrich's team, Bianchi time-trialing all the way in, and then a sprint shoot-out between Lance and Jan?
Whatever happens, it is bound to be exciting!
Hamilton, who has been riding with a broken collarbone since crashing at the end of the 1st stage, went out alone, first bridging the gap from the peleton to a small breakaway, and then dropping the breakaway. At the end of the day, Hamilton finished about 2 minutes ahead of the peleton, and has moved up from 7th to 6th in the overall classification.
As good as this year's race has been, imagine what it would be had Hamilton not broken his collarbone in Stage 1 and had Beloki not crashed out in Stage 10...
16 H 50 - Armstrong Goes Cross CountryThis was the newsflash from www.letour.com after the #2 man in the overall standings, Joseba Beloki, fell in the final kilometers of today's stage -- a downhill finish -- as he and Amrstrong were chasing down the leader, Alexandre Vinokourov, who had a 10 second advantage at the time of the crash.
It's like a Nike ad... Lance has cut out a hairpin turn and raced across a field to rejoin the peloton after racing off the road to avoid the fallen Beloki.
Unfortunately, the crash has ended Beloki's Tour. Fortunately, Armstrong was able to think quickly on his seat and avoid crashing himself. Armstrong now leads today's stage winner, Alexandre Vinokourov, by only 21 seconds.
Here are the overall standings for the Tour, after today's race (note: the top 8 spots belong to USPS team members):
1. Victor Hugo Pena (Colombia) 13 hours, 44 minutes 2. Lance Armstrong (USA) 1 second behind 3. Viatcheslav Ekimov (Russia) 00:05 4. George Hincapie (USA) 00:05 5. Jose Luis Rubiera (Spain) 00:23 6. Roberto Heras (Spain) 00:27 7. Pavel Padrnos (Czech Republic) 00:27 8. Floyd Landis (USA) 00:28 9. Joseba Beloki (Spain) 00:33 10. Jorg Jaksche (Germany) 00:38 11. Manuel Beltran (Spain) 00:39 12. Jan Ullrich (Germany) 00:39 13. Isidro Nozal (Spain) 00:44 14. Angel Vicioso (Spain) 00:51 15. Tobias Steinhauser (Germany) 00:51 16. Mikel Pradera (Spain) 00:58 17. Angel Casero (Spain) 00:58 18. Jose Azevedo (Portugal) 01:01 19. Marcos Serrano (Spain) 01:04 20. Vladimir Karpets (Russia) 01:11
My first pass at having my weblog app generate an Necho file is here.
