Tour de France 2007 thread (2 Viewers)

[rettucs]

very sad to hear about a fan being in a coma after colliding with Patrick Sinkewitz who was riding back to his hotel, he broke his nose.

Sinkewitz has failed a drugs test. Just read it on cyclingnews.

So much for the all new, clean, green T-Mobile squad.

Its been a disaster for them since Gerdemans took yellow. Whats left now? 5 of them?

 

[flashback]

 

[rettucs]

saw that on telly last night. Thankfully the dog was grand, as was yer man. Made shite out of his wheel though

 

[IFF]

Very funny... this Hernandez guy who won today attacked so hard and early because no one told him how horrific these climbs were going to be.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/6903012.stm

he's from colombia, he probably thought they were small

seriously these colombians are use to mountains of 4,000 meters

while in comparison to tuesday's climbs of 2,700meters, the tour of quinghai lake on currently (where paul griffin and ryan connor are listed as iranians. they better watch it or they won't get visas into ireland next time they want to come home) reaches 3,800 meters on 3 days

Rasmussen for the overall anyone? I know he can't TT for shit, but he could build up a serious lead in the hills. T

the problem, i don't think, is not that he can't time trial but that he has so little weight that he doesn't have the reserves left at the end of the 3 weeks. i saaw a picture from 2 years ago and he was practically skin and bones

sure he's not good at tting but having such little reserves is a reason

the other thing that happened 2 years ago was after the first crash, i think he got very nervous and that's why he crashed 8 times

however i see him losing 3 minutes on saturday on saturday

Sinkewitz has failed a drugs test. Just read it on cyclingnews.

So much for the all new, clean, green T-Mobile squad.

Its been a disaster for them since Gerdemans took yellow. Whats left now? 5 of them?

i think 6. the other guy who harmon said was out of the race on sunday was the guy wo hit the dog. he's a good rider, won Ghent-Wevelgem this year from the spanish armada in 3th and 4th and his team mate Hammond in 2nd. i really wished he won yesterday. mainly as he's in one of my fantasy teams who are sucking

although i'm also probably overlooking someone

 

[nofriendo]

rasmussen has now been linked with doping offences. not good

 

[flashback]

the problem, i don't think, is not that he can't time trial but that he has so little weight that he doesn't have the reserves left at the end of the 3 weeks. i saaw a picture from 2 years ago and he was practically skin and bones

Armstrong wasn't exactly a fat bastard coming into the Tour...

I dunno. I think me might have the legs, its very hard to know. I would not be that afraid of the TT, for him I would be afraid of a bad day in the Pyrenees, that is where you can blow up completely and loose 10 minutes in a day. If he can get to Cognac with a couple of minutes, and having had others do a lot of the work keeping things together in the hills, he might do a not catastrophic TT. Its only 55 k. This is not a TT specialist Tour I think...

But... yeah, who knows. It will probably be close enough either way.

 

[Unicron]

David Walsh on The Last Word now telling the story if it's legit then it's damning.

rasmussen has now been linked with doping offences. not good

 

[nofriendo]

David Walsh on The Last Word now telling the story if it's legit then it's damning.

they said he has passed some test recently so he will still be on the tour!

 

[flashback]

I think pundits might want to chill the fuck out a little bit on this Rasmussen story at this point.
The problem was the Danish cycling union didn't know where he was a couple of times, and since he is on the national team they must know where he is at all times. So they considered his absence to be equal to a positive dope test, and they dropped him from the national team.

That is their prerogative, but I dont think that alone means he a doper. I mean, he might be a doper, but there seems to me to be a fairly serious guilty till proven innocent buzz there.


edit : they also knew about this ages ago... mid Jun, how come they chose to act now?

 

[nuke terrorist]

see the interview on cyclingnews with Mc Quaid about Rasmussen:
Rasmussen missed four different tests but they were by several different bodies and only three missed tests of the same body count as doping.
see Rasmussen lives in Italy and has Monaco licence. he recieved letter from UCI saying he was on last chance in June.
he was asked in Friday press conference if he knew Whitney Richards a mountain biker who claims a box that he was asked to bring fron US to Rasmussen containing shoes actually contained Bovine Haemoglobin when he opened it (in 2002).
Rasmussen said he knew Richards but "could not confirm that." he was then whisked away having answered just two questions.


I haven't been here since Soler won - I never noticed him before the tour. yeah as as IFF
says you get 11,000 feet plus climbs in Colombia. 40 km plus of climbing. the very highest passes in Europe are not much over 9,000 feet - Restefond and Stelvio.

 

[nofriendo]

well my bet on contador at 30-1 aint seeming so bad now!

 

[rettucs]

well my bet on contador at 30-1 aint seeming so bad now!

he was great yesterday and I'm glad he stuck it to Rasmussen after cycling for him and Ras wouldn't repay the favour. Ras was acting the bollox and didn't deserve a stage win.

I think Contador will struggle to take back 2/3 more minutes on Rasmussen. And TT is again the achilles heel here. Will be interesting to see how Kloden goes today, but more particularly, tomorrow, which will be his last chance to do anything (last mountaintop finish tomorrow).

 

[IFF]

i thought the sports guy on tv3 this morning called him Albert Costello at the 8am news

i could have misheard it though. i was brushing the teeth at the time

hopefully garate raked up plenty of KoM points today and then again on wednesday

god i hope so, he's my lasty chance of actually winning anything. all my other bets have sucked

i've not seen stage yet, i just now he won a cat 1 climb which was during lunch time

i went for a 5euro each way at 16-1 and to reaffirm my commitment went for a 1euro win at 50-1 last week

 

[rettucs]

I'm developing a serious dislike for Rasmussen. Whatever about all the shit going on in Denmark about him being dropped from the national squad, hes acting the right prick out on the bike at the moment.

2 days ago making Contador go through and work with him, expecting him to do it for nothing without agreeing to let him have the stage. Then again yesterday giving out when Contador was attacking him. What the hell does he expect?

I really hope Contador kicks his ass on the aubisque tomorrow. He should do, but could do with a little more help and guidance from Popovych, Leipheimer, and Hincapie, who hasn't been seen for dust on the front in the mountains. Hincapie was a great man in the hills for lance. Why the hell isn't he doing the same for Contador? I know he went up the road yesterday and the plan was for Contador to latch onto him after he'd dropped Rasmussen, but I reckon if he'd stayed in the pack and himself and Levi had have taken on the riding at the front at the bottom of the final climb they'd have really exposed Rasmussen and Contador could have attacked way earlier. Boogerd was left in control for way too long.

 

[nofriendo]

Tour de France pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov has tested positive for illegal doping.

The Astana team revealed that their Kazakh leader failed a test after winning Saturday's time trial in Albi., and have withdrawn from the Tour.

Does that mean that entire Astana have withdrawn !!!!

 

[flashback]

For. Fuck's. Sake.


Deep breath. Exhale.
Fuck.


It just breaks my fucking heart. Cycling is just looking like a joke.
Jesus.

 

[nofriendo]

i know i fucking blows. and yeah the astana team has withdrawn. Thats a shame for kloden (unless of course there are more to be implicated!!!)

Still on a brighter side it means sastre is now up to 5th

 

[flashback]

They caught Vino doing a transfusion after the TT.

They must be getting better at those tests, because transfusions at least used to be more or less daily events for riders during the tour, and no one really got caught other than [SIZE=-1]Tyler Hamilton.

Yup.
[/SIZE]

 

[flashback]

And now that I think of it, Astana were only just let into the Tour, after the team was implicated in a number of other doping cases.



I am not even angry or annoyed any more, just sad. It's like I take personally.
Deutche Telecom will pull out of the sport now, and more than likely along with other sponsors.

 

[nofriendo]

they had an interview with dick pound and paul kimmage on newstalk this morning. When kimmage was asked about rasmusssen he said:

This guy is drugged up to the gills, and lying through his teeth. His participation in this tour is a disgrace and we will see an impact before the end of the week...

pretty damning stuff there!