Incroyable
Stage 17 of Le Tour de France was absolutely incredible. Yesterday, Floyd Landis, who was in serious contention for GC leader (Yellow Jersey), hit the wall, ran completely out of steam and lost 10 minutes to his competition. Given that he started yesterday with a 2 minute lead that left him 8 minutes in the hole and from the perspective of the talking heads completely out of the race. Boy were they wrong! The Landis riding today was not the Landis riding yesterday. Right from the first hill today he took off and left the peloton in disarray. Bad decisions on the part of the other teams and smart moves on the part of Landis’s support team (they kept a car right with him the whole way to keep him fed and hydrated all day, which they didn’t yesterday and that was the likely cause of his hitting the wall) allowed him to get over a 6 minute lead by the end of the race. Landis was smart vtoday. Yesterday he and his team were dragged into attack after attack and that cost them dearly. Today he attacked and the remaining teams did not take it seriously until it was too late. It was an awesome bit of riding and racing. He gained back most of what he lost yesterday and now there is only 30 seconds separating the top three contenders, (Floyd Landis, Carlos Sastre and Oscar Pereiro) for the GC crown. Of the three Landis is the best time trialer and Saturday’s stage will be a 57km individual time trial. As all the mountain rides are over I think Landis will win the yellow jersey in Paris on Sunday as long as his stamina holds up. Lance Armstrong retiring was the best thing that has happened to le Tour. This year has been wild and unpredicatable and that’s what makes the racing so riveting.
Comment from Adam
Time: 7/28/2006, 9:45 am
I guess he forgot to take his drugs that one day