In which Rossi is a bad cycling fangirl...

[deathpixie]

Wow. I totally missed the start of le Tour this year. It's 10 stages in and I finally remembered about it. *headdesks* I blame the Jays for distracting me.

In any event, it's another Armstrong tour. The big Texan is second overall after 10 stages, by a fraction of a second and he's looking good. My personal favourites, my Aussie boys, are still mostly in the middle of things. There's six of them this year - definite decrease - and no Robbie McEwan due to a nasty accident a couple of months ago where he chipped off part of his tibia. Woe.

16 - Michael ROGERS
35 - Cadel EVANS
38 - Stuart O’GRADY
58 - Brett Daniel LANCASTER
86 - Mark RENSHAW
130 - Matthew LLOYD

Of the six, I'm familiar with three - O'Grady, Rogers and Evans. O'Grady is a veteran of the Tour and it's great to see him still in there after a serious head injury several years ago from an assault; at one point he was having serious issues with heart irregularities. Evans, the (other) man with two last names, is a sprinter, just starting to come into his own. He won stages last year and the year before, and even wore the yellow jersey as overall leader at one point (memory is fuzzy). is not Baden Cook. Bad me, no cyclist. Rogers is, in my limited opinion, Australia's next great chance of an overall winner. He was doing amazingly well last year before an unfortunate crash on the downhill run of the Alps took him out of the race but he seems to have recovered well from that and is 16th overall. At least apparently until he crashed. Bugger.

The last three are new-ish faces to me, which means I'll have to do some reading up on them before I comment. Which means they probably raced last year and I missed them completely. *wry*

In other sporting news, it looks like I'll be getting a free ticket to the Jays game on the 18th. No idea where yet, but since I'll be helping out with the Lady Jays Food Drive, I'm thinking somewhere semi-reasonable. Must remember to take my glove, at least as a protective measure. ;) But yeah, doing charity stuff on Saturday, taking in donations of food and cash for the Food Bank Saturday morning. I figured it was a charity event I'd a) enjoy and b) be able to contribute to (finances are still recovering) and hey, I might get to gush at Roy Hallday's wife. ;)

Comments

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

somewhere semi-reasonable.

I have to admit, though we were high up (hiiiiiiiigh up), I really liked being able to see the entire field. Once the "Oh, this isn't so ba - HOLY HELL I AM REALLY HIGH UP WHY ARE THE STAIRS SO TINY?!" went away.

[qodarkness.livejournal.com]

You haven't been paying attention have you, young miss? Cadel is a climber not a sprinter and a brilliant time trial rider. Used to be a cross=country mountain biker and has lungs like you wouldn't believe. Unfortunately, also has a crap team so is currently far behind where he should be (about 35th at the moment) after the team time trial knocked him back 2.5 minutes. But he did well in the stage last night, which ended on a climb, so while he probably won't win due to team crapness, he should make up a lot of ground in the mountains.

Rogers is probably out. Bad crash last night. From the glimpse you could see, it looks like he may have dislocated a shoulder.

I am still following Klodi, my "I'm just the domestique to Armstrong and Contador even though I've been on the overall podium three times at the Tour, oh look I'm already beating Contador, wonder if I should take on Armstrong" German dark horse. Gives me someone else to pay attention to at least.

A

[deathpixie]

Wow, I suck - I did the thing where I get Baden Cooke and Cadel Evans mixed up, again. And Rogers crashed? *waves fist at websites* The internet did not tell me this! Noooooo!

[qodarkness.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Lancaster has been in it before - he went out on the day every Aussie went out (ie Rogers' crash day) - he'd crashed several days before and when they hit the mountains he couldn't go on.

Renshaw is Cavendish's lead-out man for the sprints and is doing a bang-up job.

And I think Lloyd may be a debutant, though I'm not 100% sure. I keep getting him mixed up with Matt White, who is now team manager for one of the teams. Because I is dumb sometimes.

A

[stratford-girl.livejournal.com]

You totally need to come to France/Geneva. It's like, Tour mania here. With a small degree of insanity set aside for Federer's Wimbledon win, of course ;)

wOOt Lady Jays! You must totally gush at Halliday's wife if you get the chance.