The Tour route announcement has made this a busy news day, to say the least, so we're honoring the Grand Boucle by dusting off our July feedbag. Takes ya back, don't it? Uh, right...
Starters: More Tour media:
- Apparently the main feature at the Tour rollout was a video of London. I did a quick Youtube search and apparently it's not there, though my search did retrieve something called Señor Coconut en Jazz Cafe (Londres), which I recommend.
- CN also rides the prologue. Speaking of which, David Millar is already panting in anticipation of a winnable short ITT on home turf. Can a Scotsman call London home turf? It actually gets worse:
I will build my season on this prologue.
He did not just say that, did he? Is this what Saunier Duval wanted for a return on their investment? Seven minutes of glory?
Read on...
- As expected, things turned petty and juvenile when the subject of 2006 came up... they actually showed Landis, then superimposed the 1950s-era graphic of cracking glass over the picture. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the adults that run the world's greatest bike race. CN on Prudhomme:
"The deception we felt was capital. Doping is the number one problem in sport.... We got hit over the back of the head by what happened." ASO seems unaffected by Landis' claim that he did not use testosterone - or any other illegal performance enhancing substances - to win the 2006 Tour.
- Eurosport calls this a tough route because there are six climbing stages, not five.
- Winston Churchill once said "The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." In light of his 24-hour rhetorical U-turn, perhaps the same could be said of Oscar Pereiro?
"I am not considering myself as the Tour de France winner," the Caisse d'Epargne rider told reporters on Thursday. "In the statutes, Floyd is still the winner. So for now, it's Floyd, not me. People want me to say what I can't say. At this time, I am the Tour runner-up."
- Paris-Roubaix makeover is underway as scads of youth descend on the broken cobbles.
- WTF-story of the day: Manolo Saiz intends to pick up his career in 2007 right where he left off, as DS of the Astana boys. If he's serious, presumably he has one hell of a collection of incriminating photos.