Following up on my
How to Watch Cycling for Americans, I am going to write some coverage of the Tour de France so that readers who arent normally exposed to the race can read along and follow Lance on his quest for an unprecedented sixth victory. If you dont know much about cycling, I would recommend reading that post before hand. Im going to break it down as much as I can here, but it will greatly help you to get that background.
If you desire more in depth coverage, check out
VeloNews or
Cycling News.
The race thus far has been run over flat territory, meaning that the sprinters have been looking for stage wins. The big players, Lance included, have merely been biding their time, trying not to crash. Highlights include the Team Time Trial, where teams race against the clock for the best time. US Postal, Lance Armstrong's team, took no prisoners, beating the field by more than a minute, a margin that is nothing to sneeze at, especially in an event as short as the team time trial (around 40 miles, it took just around 1 hour, 10 minutes to race). Lance's chief rivals, Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, Iban Mayo, and Roberto Heras, have been biding their time, waiting for the mountains, where the race really starts. Iban Mayo suffered a crash in stage three, and is now more than five minutes behind Lance, something that effectively dashes his hopes of winning the race. The current leader is Thomas Voeckler,a French rider who was in a successful breakaway earlier last week. His is not expected to be a factor in the mountains. The first week was also full of crashes, with over half of the riders being involved in at least one crash, including Lance Armstrong, who was caught in two crashes.
The climbing started today, in stage 10. Today was also Bastille Day, meaning that the French riders in the race will certainly be putting on a show. There are nine rated climbs on the route today. Climbs are rated in difficulty, from a Cat 4, the easiest, to Cat 1, the hardest. Then there are the Hors Category climbs--those that are so heinous, they exceed all other difficulty ratings. Todays race includes one Cat 1 climbs and a smattering of the lower category climbs.
As predicted, there was a flurry of attacks. One breakaway got away, comrpised of Axel Merckx, Eddie Merckx's son, and Richard Virenque, a French climber and contender for the climbers' Polka-Dot Jersey. The two built a lead of 8 minutes before Axel was dropped on a climb and gobbled back up by the peloton. Virenque didnt wait for him, and continued on down the road, winning the race with 5:20 on Armstrong.
The race enters the mountains on Friday. Expect things to get very interesting there, with attacks coming from the main contenders--Armstrong, Ullrich, etc.
Oh, and because there has been some confusion in the other thread, the title,
for Americans is toungue-in-cheek. America is one of the few countries that doesnt follow the sport, and Im just trying to help make a few more fans here
