The Underground Man

Le Tour de France 2004

I've been a real Tour de France fan for a couple of years. Living in France, I got to watch it live in my local cafe. Even struggling to grasp the commentator's French it was entrancing. The coverage in L'Equipe was first-rate (why don't we have a great daily sports paper in this country?) and proved a great accompaniment to the drama unfolding on the TV.

Last year, I watched I got up at 6am every morning (West Coast time) to watch it live on OLN. This month, it's the Lance Armstrong Network. To prepare, I bought and read Lance's book, "It's Not About the Bike".

This year will be his attempt to win a sixth Tour de France. An unparallalled feat if he achieves it (and I sure hope he does). Last year had so much drama between Josepi Beloki's awful spill and Lance's resulting x-country excursion to his being knocked down by an asinine spectator to the final win by only a minute (after three weeks of racing). Couldn't have been closer. Of course, he was distracted, breaking up with his wife and getting over an illness just before the race began.

This year though, he is 32, nearly 33. None of the other five-win riders ever won one at this "advanced" age. I think we may see the first one--if Mother Chance allows. All the progress in athletics lately has shown that up until 40, injuries permitting, one can compete at the highest level.

The problem here is that one doesn't recover as quickly at 32 as at 22. And three weeks is a hell of a long time to be on a bike at an average speed of over 20mph.

Oh, yeah. Lance is in second place after the first day's prologue (the time trial over a relatively flat course). Two seconds back. His chief competitors are expected to be racers Jan Ullrich and Bradley McGee. Look out for Tyler Hamilton, who left the US Postal team (Lance's team) last year in search of his own success. He finished fourth with a broken collarbone!

If you're going to watch only one day, watch the climb the day of 21 July. It's a very famous grind up to the top of L'Alpe d'Huez (some 1850 metres above sea-level). Lance has become a famous climber since his return from cancer (he lost a lot of weight and re-built his musculature after his return) and so he frequently leaves competitors in the dust on these climbs. They are tests of will as much as conditioning and that mini-drama where he breaks his nearest competitors will is captivating.

I could go on and on..

Posted by artandscience at July 3, 2004 02:09 PM