The agony of defeat
The Americans were all expected to do really well in Saturday's time trial at the Tour, unfortunately with one exception that turned out not to be the case. The one exception was Floyd Landis, someone who my dad has been a pushing as a TdF favorite since the beginning of the year, but in the wake of the doping scandal he was thrown into doubt and inexpicably abandoned Landis and choose Zabriskie (actually he choose Leipheimer first, but I'll get to that in a second). I think that may have been the sweetest part of Saturday morning. It's so incredibly rare for my Dad to be wrong when making any kind of educated guess, that when it does happen it's always a special occasion.
So going in we both choose Leipheimer, which fortunately (for one of us at least) means that we canceled each other out. Fortunate because he ended up finishing 6 minutes back on Saturday's time trial. While no one wants to say it, losing that much time has probably effectively ended his Tour. He said he doesn't want to make excuses, but he does allude to being ill, so who knows what will happen in the mountains. Which brings us back to Landis, it's not all good news. News is that he has a degenerative hip condition, and that he's going to need surgery and that it may cut short his career. In other words this may be his once chance at the Tour. Then again he could get his hip replaced and be good for another four years (ten if he's Ekimov).
There's was some other little sporting event I was watching over the weekend in addition to the tour, but I can't remember off the top of my head what it was, the Volvo Ocean Race? Nah... Oh yeah... the World Cup Final. I watched both the final and the 3rd place game. Mostly I just wanted Portugal to lose, and so I got my wish, I also wanted France to win, but I was okay with Italy winning, particularly when you consider the interesting implications of that in relationship to the US team, who tied Italy, and might have beat them (particularly with a better ref).
Only 3 years 334 days until the next World Cup
So going in we both choose Leipheimer, which fortunately (for one of us at least) means that we canceled each other out. Fortunate because he ended up finishing 6 minutes back on Saturday's time trial. While no one wants to say it, losing that much time has probably effectively ended his Tour. He said he doesn't want to make excuses, but he does allude to being ill, so who knows what will happen in the mountains. Which brings us back to Landis, it's not all good news. News is that he has a degenerative hip condition, and that he's going to need surgery and that it may cut short his career. In other words this may be his once chance at the Tour. Then again he could get his hip replaced and be good for another four years (ten if he's Ekimov).
There's was some other little sporting event I was watching over the weekend in addition to the tour, but I can't remember off the top of my head what it was, the Volvo Ocean Race? Nah... Oh yeah... the World Cup Final. I watched both the final and the 3rd place game. Mostly I just wanted Portugal to lose, and so I got my wish, I also wanted France to win, but I was okay with Italy winning, particularly when you consider the interesting implications of that in relationship to the US team, who tied Italy, and might have beat them (particularly with a better ref).
Only 3 years 334 days until the next World Cup
posted by DireKobold at 12:19 PM
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