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Dave's Dogmatic Dribbles
By Dave Osborne
Jul 22, 2004, 12:54
Tour de France - Stage 17
The suspense is killing me! Who will win the polka dot and yellow jerseys? Then again, maybe the suspense is who will finish 2nd and 3rd on Sunday.
Heras and Bertolini suffered too much from the suspense and decided not to sign in this morning. A couple other riders didn’t make the field because of the time cut from yesterday.
Floyd Landis worked hard for Lance Armstrong again today. Will he soon discover a new contract?
Today’s stage has a couple big humps starting at 13 km in. They are called Gladys and Madeline (excuse my French). The usual attack of no name racers occurs and Simoni seems interested in getting some KoM points today.
The attacks and breaks sort themselves out to a group of six and establish a maximum gap of 7:50. After Moreau and Virenque bridge, the six start falling off and the peloton gets closer. The blue train is in control. The posties are rotating all the troops to keep a fresh pacesetter. There have been a couple of crashes. Tombak stuck his hand in his wheel trying to adjust something. The big problem here was that the wheel was going around when he did it! Let’s hope he still has all five digits. Simoni, Virenque, and Moreau still maintain the lead at the start of the last climb with about 25 km to go. There are some insignificant attacks against Lance.
Wait! The fireworks have started, even though it’s a bit too little too late. But hey, the suspense is still there! Sastre takes off and Basso follows. I blinked and they were back together. I blinked again and Sastre takes off. Basso watches him ride off in the sunset.
Wow! Sastre must have gotten some good mojo at the last feed as he blows by Virenque, Moreau, and Simoni. I wonder when Ullrich is going to make his move. Maybe Sunday?
Poor Sastre, he gets caught and then gets pooped out the back while Landis is the leader for Lance. I think Landis is showing what he’s made of for his new team next year. Maybe he can squeeze out a few more bucks in his contract!
Lance Armstrong takes the win ahead of Andreas Klöden, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. Will Armstrong settle for four stage wins, or will he go for the sprint again tomorrow? Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com to find out!
The decent begins and it looks like Lance has given Floyd the green light to win the stage. Unfortunately, the T-Mobile boys aren’t going to let that happen. Too bad for Landis as Klöden has more legs. It looked like Klöden was going to do it but I think Lance was upset at the German boys for not letting Landis get the stage.The last think you want to do is make Lance mad. So, he spanks the T-Mobile boys and wins the stage by centimeters! He showed them for sucking wheel all day and not letting Floyd have the win after he pulled their butts all day long. I’m impressed with that sprint by Lance!
Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com as the Tour continues!
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