Tour De Lance

The last 3 weeks were spent in frenetically using refresh on the browser while accessing English version pages of www.letour.fr for live updates - min by min of the Tour De France(TDF), while at office and being glued to the TV while at home. See http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/2000/depeches.html

Lance Armstrong, who’s an incredible athlete, decimated his opposition in characteristic Texan style – brash, in the face. He also showed occasional glimpses of leadership in pulling his team together in a few stages when he could have easily gone on to get higher points. But then the TDF is as much a strategic race as it is test of ability. Physical endurance is required as much as a keen mind.

There were only a couple of real challengers – Alexander Vinokourov, who despite finishing 5th threatened Lance at once stage by his incessant ‘attacks’ on the peloton. Eventually Ivan Basso and Jan Uhlrich who finished 2nd and 3rd finished rather tamely, unlike Vino who attacked even in the closing moments of the TDF in Paris, eventually bulldozing into the 5th place. I am betting that he will come close to winning the TDF sometime in the next few years, if he keeps himself safe. But then this blog is about Lance. Lance won his 7th and perhaps last TDF by his smallest margin ever, but in the coolest way possible. He was never hustled. He responded to every challenge in the race and never lost. He was on song in the individual time trials when he won by 23 secs, which is a huge margin, in the context of the assembled field of super athletes.

The French media came up with the title of this blog as well as a few other amusing taglines. For ex, yday in the finishing stages of the TDF, when it was raining one of the cyclists was saying to the camera that he’s singing in the rain. The commentators (themselves ex TDF participants, some of them stage winners) then came up with an old chestnut about Singing Indurain (Migeul Indurain was acknowledges as perhaps the greatest of his time until Lance came around and made the record his own).

The enduring images of the TDF 2005 will be those of the Discovery team clinking their glasses of champagne for Lance’s 7th victory while riding at about 40 kmph as well as that of the 21 teams riding down the Champs Elysees as part of the tradition of this glorious event.

Au revoir till 2006.