Sunshine and Light

Not Quite the Espys

Since the sultry days of summer have finally found our un-air-conditioned city, most of my weekend was spent lounging either in front of the tv watching the TdF, or in the air conditioned bedroom, reading. Which all makes for lousy blogging. So instead of anything real, I’ll just give quick thoughts on what’s going on in the Tour de France. As a supplement for the Espys, I present the Sunshine and Light Awards. Others have done it better (of course!), but in no particular order:

The Black Widow Spider Tactics award for getting what they want and then eating their hapless provider goes to T-Mobile for managing to drop Sergei Gonchar the minute they hit the hills. He had the yellow, but the team went to the front and drove the pace so high that they dropped him. Rather than protecting their yellow jersey, they put all of their eggs in the Andreas Kloden basket. So far Kloden hasn’t shown the chops to make that a brilliant strategic move.

The Tyler Hamilton Riding through Pain award goes to Stuart O’Grady with his cracked vertebrae. Hopefully Stuey doesn’t also end up with the Tyler Hamilton doping award.

The Catches Bullets in his Teeth award goes to Matthias Kessler. After a long breakaway and then getting swept up in the final sprint on stage 2, he managed to come back in stage 3 and take the victory from the sprinters. Then after a nasty accident that took out two other riders, he actually got back on, with gravel still in his helmet, and finished. He still finished ahead of 30+ other riders on the stage.

The Are You My Daddy? award goes to US Postal. It’s hard to believe this is the same (similar) team as the one that’s supported Lance for the last few years. With the exception of Popovych winning a stage, the team has pretty much just disappeared when the road tilted up. They obviously miss the strong leadership (dictatorship?) that Lance provided. I’m sure there’s a whole PhD in management paper waiting to be written there.

The Where's Yoda when you need him? award goes to Tom Boonen. You can tell Tommy's REALLY frustrated with the lack of wins. But I think a few years of seasoning will have him kicking McEwen butt consistently. A little more experience might keep him out of the wind too early, or teach him the street-fighting kind of sprinting that McEwen excels at. Patience, young jedi.

And finally

The Sweet Memories award goes to my husband. We met 5 years ago this month at a Tour de France party. To think his mom was worried that his cycling would get in the way of finding a wife. Instead it was the way we met.

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 8:51 AM