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July 17, 2004
Tour de france
For the first time this tour, I took time out to watch. (Pretty good suggestion, Dad.)
Today the guys had a grueling stage in the Pyrenees with 7 climbs up to mountain passes, taking just over 6 hours to ride a bit more than 200 k. The cyclist with the yellow jersey, Voeckler, comes from Schiltigheim, down the road from where we used to live in Alsace. He managed to hang on to his lead even when Armstrong really charged up the last long slope, staying 22 seconds ahead overall. That means Voeckler lost something like 9 minutes to Armstrong over the last two days.
The announcers were claiming it's all decided now, that Armstrong has basically won. Granted, I don't know much about the context, but that seems an amazingly quick judgement when you watch how these guys ride, and how fast they can gain or lose a minute. Four other cyclists are with 3 1/2 minutes of Armstrong, and this is after 58 hours of riding, but not quite 2/3s of the way through the tour. Suspenseful.
Posted by Mark at July 17, 2004 07:53 PM