Tour de France
Just about the only sport I bother to watch is cycling: more specifically the Tour de France. Before we go any further, my interest has nothing at all to do with the plethora of rather fit men wearing tight lycra. Honestly. I think that anyone who does the Tour is practically certifiable. It’s nearly 3,500 km of hell over three weeks, some of it up gradients that most people would only contemplate attempting with the help of ropes and oxygen masks. One competitor had to pull out before the tour because he was undergoing surgery for a saddle sore. The very idea of a saddle sore so severe that it requires surgery makes me wince.
Yesterday’s stage was the Prologueâa 6.5 km individual time trial held in Paris. We had high hopes for David Millarâan up and coming British rider, who is a natural on the time trials. When we saw that his time half way round the course was a full 5 seconds ahead of the fastest time, we thought he was a certainty for the yellow jersey. Bear in mind that most of the times were within fractions of a second of one another, so 5 seconds was a huge margin. Unfortunately, typical British sporting luck intervened, and Millar’s chain came off on the second part of the course. In the end, the Australian rider, Brad McGee, beat Millar by fractions of a second.
This year is the Tour’s centenary, so it’s a special year. After several years in the wilderness of Eurosport on Sky, the Tour is now being shown on free terrestrial digital TV (ITV2), so we’re enjoying being able to watch it again.
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Blimey, I haven't seen the TDF in ages. (Probably related to the Eurosport wilderness you mentioned) I used to watch it on C4, although Phil someone, the annoying commentator used to be a detracting influence.
Who knows, might even watch some of it this year now. Must remember to set the TiVo. Grin----- Phil Liggett - he's still there, but I don't find him too annoying.
There was a massive crash yesterday as they all sprinted for the finish. The combination of 200 guys all going hell for leather down a very narrow winding road is not a good one. One rider's foot slipped off his pedal and most of the peleton behind him went over their handlebars. It was like falling dominoes, but with bikes. Ouch.
by bsag @ 07/07/2003 5:07 pm • Permalink •
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well, at our WEBlock you'll might find an useful tool if you like to watch the Tour de France. We've build a sidebar for Internet Explorer (5+) that features minute by minute commentary and live streaming video of the TdF.
http://weblock.webuildit.nl/tour/tour.php
Our weblog is in Dutch, but the sidebar is in English, so I'll explain to you how to get it to work. To get the sidebar, you have to put the following code in a bookmark. And then click it. That's it! Enjoy.
[removed]void(search=open('http://weblock.webuildit.nl/tour/tour.php','search'))
by TbosS @ 08/07/2003 3:08 pm • Permalink •
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