FanPost

Good Julich TdF commentary

in "Road" magazine for October.  Not available online without subscription, it seems, but worth the purchase. In addition to some race analysis there are interesting observations from Bobby J on:

Gerdemann and CSC; sprinter etiquette towards non-sprinters; the importance of having your full team in the race (the loss of Zabriskie and Cancellara affecting the race of other CSC riders); the careers of French riders David Moncoutie and Sandy Casar (would have achieved more on non-French teams); and Mauricio Soler (why it's good to have wild card teams in the race).

His real-time commentary on Vino over the course of the race is poignant.  Of the stage where Vino lost 28 minutes Julich says, "I've known Vino for a long time and consider him a friend.  It's the first time I've ever seen him give up mentally.  When he gave the 'I'm done' sign to the camera, I couldn't believe my eyes.  He never gives up.  He always fights."  

Then a few days later: "We were asleep when the telephone and text messages started coming... I thought they got the name wrong.  With the cloud hanging over Rasmussen's head, when they said Vino was kicked out of the Tour for a positive for blood doping, I immediately thought [they meant] Rasmussen.  When they said Vino, my heart sank.  He is a friend of mine who I look up to.  He was an inspiration to many cyclists out there.  And for him to make such a poor decision...it really hurt."

After Rasmussen was kicked out Bobby notes that at the CSC training camp in Luxembourg "one of my teammates recounted the same story about a week earlier.  He said, 'I saw Rasmussen out training in Fassa Bortolo clothing in Italy up in the Dolomites, and I thought that was really weird.'  Then it came out that he was in Mexico, but my teammate said, 'Maybe he wasn't in Mexico the whole time because I saw him training.'  So it was a week before the story busted."

I hadn't heard the detail about the Fassa Bortolo kit.  The unnamed teammate is right, it was weird.