 |
| All that work for nothing. Great. |
Dammit Liquigas!
Other than his comical looks and sense of style, I've never had much against Bradley Wiggins, but I really wanted to choke him, Sky and Liquigas today. This ridiculous sham of a battle for the Yellow Jersey killed the stage today and we were left with nothing. Well, actually Valverde was pretty bad ass today, but that was about it.
We were robbed.
There were plenty of interesting prospects to win today in that leading group that got away early in the stage. Valverde, Rui Costa, Sandy Casar, Egoi Martinez, Jean-Christophe Peraud, Ten Dam, Hoogerland, Vinokourov, Gorka Izaguirre, Leipheimer, Chris Anker Sorensen... This was building up to be an epic (sorry, I had to) battle for the stage, but it wasn't to be. Why? Because in the main bunch Liquigas kept the tempo so high they brought the break back. One by one, until only Valverde was left.
And what did Liquigas get in exchange for suffocating the stage? Oh, yeah: Nothing. Not a thing. Nibali actually lost time. Thanks guys.
It got worse.
Ok, so the useless Liquigas shenanigans neutralized the battle for the stage. I was already resigned, but at least the Yellow Jersey group would go for the stage themselves and we'd have a small, little, tiny race for the stage, right? WRONG. Froome, once again stronger than his leader, could have, should have dropped his ass and chase Valverde down. Could he have caught him? Passed him? Taken the stage? We will never know, because Sky (or Wiggins, depending on who you believe) didn't want it to happen. Why? Why on earth wouldn't he be allowed to? Wiggins has more than 2 minutes on him! There was no way Froome could have taken that in the last 4k!
"Why wait on Bradley when the yellow jersey not in danger?" -Sean Yates
Damn this Tour!
Still...
I want to highlight two riders, not only today, but throughout the last week or so.
- Thomas Voeckler, of course. He deserves that Polka Dot jersey, he earned it with his sweat. The barrage on poor Kessiakoff today was striking. Also, the Tour that
- Chris Horner is having has been astonishing.
As far as I'm concerned the Tour is over. Thanks for coming.
Ok, I'll see you guys here tomorrow.
Krusher, I think you nailed it today. Watching Liquigas pump it up, without result, other than squelching the field, I had to yell "que cazzo!" at the screen this morning, one of the BEST phrases I remember from my Italian riding buddy Marco.
ReplyDeleteHorner did put in an impressive run today!