Stage Seventeen...
Stage Seventeen:
1st: Floyd Landis - USA - Phonak - 5:23:36
2nd: Carlos Sastre - Spain - CSC - 5:29:18
3rd: Christophe Moreau - France - AG2R - 5:29:34
Overall:
1st: Oscar Pereiro - Spain - Caisse d'Epargne-Illes - 80:08:49
2nd: Carlos Sastre - CSC - Spain - ( + :12)
3rd: Floyd Landis - USA - Phonak - (+ :30)
Other notables:
4th: Andreas Kloden - Germany - T-Mobile (+ 2:29)
5th: Cadel Evans - Australia - Lotto - (+ 3:08)
18th: Levi Leipheimer - USA - Gerolsteiner (+ 22:01)
19th: Jose Azevedo - Portugal - Discovery (+ 34:01)
24th: Yaroslav Popovich - Ukraine - Discovery (+ 48:51)
32nd: George Hincapie - USA - Discovery (+ 1:07:33)
Yellow Jersey (Overall Leader): Oscar Periero
Green Jersey(Top Points Earner): Robbie McEwen (Austrailia)
White Jersey(Best Young Rider): Damiano Cunego (Italy)
Red Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountain): Michael Rasmussen
Yellow Numbers (Best Team): T-Mobile
Red Number (Most Competitive): Floyd Landis
Holy God. If anyone needed to understand why I'm so attached to this tour all they had to do was watch yesterday's and today's stages in succession. These posts make me sound bipolar, but the impossible happens day after day in this thing. Everytime it seems like the field is sorting itself out, something totally incredible happens. Today's instance: Floyd Landis. Everyone - announcers, fans, Floyd himself had pretty much said 'Alright, good game' after losing over eight minutes yesterday and falling out of the top ten. And then today, he got into an early breakaway and dropped the leaders. He looked nothing like the man from stage sixteen who hit the wall. He was back to typical form. And it looked like he was simply riding out for a stage victory. And then he started putting on time over the breakaway containing about 35 of the big names (and 4 Discovery members, hanging in there). Then he caught up to the leaders. And then he was in the lead. And he wasn't racing for the stage anymore. He was racing for the yellow jersey again. At several points on the road he gave himself enough time to get it, but with the last climb of the day he lost a bit of his lead. Still - he went from being eight minutes down to thirty seconds. SECONDS. He's in third place. I don't know how to say it - but that just doesn't happen. This stage was unbelieveable. People in the booth put down their calculators because once again the board was turned upside down and it came down to the clock at the very end to see who would be where in the standings. Landis was accused of having no panache by the French press when he was in the yellow jersey. This would be a big f-you to them from Mr. Landis. You don't get anymore amazing than that. Now with tomorrow bwing a fairly inconsequencial undulating stage, it comes down to the final 54 km individual time trial on Saturday to decide this race. Floyd's specialty is time trialing...he could amaze us all. I love this thing.
1st: Floyd Landis - USA - Phonak - 5:23:36
2nd: Carlos Sastre - Spain - CSC - 5:29:18
3rd: Christophe Moreau - France - AG2R - 5:29:34
Overall:
1st: Oscar Pereiro - Spain - Caisse d'Epargne-Illes - 80:08:49
2nd: Carlos Sastre - CSC - Spain - ( + :12)
3rd: Floyd Landis - USA - Phonak - (+ :30)
Other notables:
4th: Andreas Kloden - Germany - T-Mobile (+ 2:29)
5th: Cadel Evans - Australia - Lotto - (+ 3:08)
18th: Levi Leipheimer - USA - Gerolsteiner (+ 22:01)
19th: Jose Azevedo - Portugal - Discovery (+ 34:01)
24th: Yaroslav Popovich - Ukraine - Discovery (+ 48:51)
32nd: George Hincapie - USA - Discovery (+ 1:07:33)
Yellow Jersey (Overall Leader): Oscar Periero
Green Jersey(Top Points Earner): Robbie McEwen (Austrailia)
White Jersey(Best Young Rider): Damiano Cunego (Italy)
Red Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountain): Michael Rasmussen
Yellow Numbers (Best Team): T-Mobile
Red Number (Most Competitive): Floyd Landis
Holy God. If anyone needed to understand why I'm so attached to this tour all they had to do was watch yesterday's and today's stages in succession. These posts make me sound bipolar, but the impossible happens day after day in this thing. Everytime it seems like the field is sorting itself out, something totally incredible happens. Today's instance: Floyd Landis. Everyone - announcers, fans, Floyd himself had pretty much said 'Alright, good game' after losing over eight minutes yesterday and falling out of the top ten. And then today, he got into an early breakaway and dropped the leaders. He looked nothing like the man from stage sixteen who hit the wall. He was back to typical form. And it looked like he was simply riding out for a stage victory. And then he started putting on time over the breakaway containing about 35 of the big names (and 4 Discovery members, hanging in there). Then he caught up to the leaders. And then he was in the lead. And he wasn't racing for the stage anymore. He was racing for the yellow jersey again. At several points on the road he gave himself enough time to get it, but with the last climb of the day he lost a bit of his lead. Still - he went from being eight minutes down to thirty seconds. SECONDS. He's in third place. I don't know how to say it - but that just doesn't happen. This stage was unbelieveable. People in the booth put down their calculators because once again the board was turned upside down and it came down to the clock at the very end to see who would be where in the standings. Landis was accused of having no panache by the French press when he was in the yellow jersey. This would be a big f-you to them from Mr. Landis. You don't get anymore amazing than that. Now with tomorrow bwing a fairly inconsequencial undulating stage, it comes down to the final 54 km individual time trial on Saturday to decide this race. Floyd's specialty is time trialing...he could amaze us all. I love this thing.
posted by Pam @ 12:32 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:13 AM,
Liz said…
AHHHHHH! i love your updates cuz i never have a chance to watch it anymore....makes me sad! GO LANDIS!!
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