Tour de France

[muffyn]

ok, you experts fill me in. I started watching the race (again) this year. was surprised to see Lance Armstrong racing & has their own team (whom, I guess also took many of his teammates from last team.)
anyway,, was a hard day for Lance,, 3 crashes he was involved in. the announcers are saying that he has LOST the race for this year.
soooooo this menas he has no hope of catching up to the leaders now?

 

[tennisfan]

Pretty much as he is 13 minutes behind the leader & the chances of making that time up is pretty difficult. Unless something drastic happens its all over for him.

 

[FireDancer]

I haven't seen yesterday's stage yet, I'm watching it after work, but 13 minutes will be almost impossible to make up. If there was only one legitimate GC contender that far ahead of him there is always the possibility that they will have a crash or something that costs them that much time. If that one contender is Andy Schleck it is more then possible since he can't time trial. To expect multiple GC riders to have that kind of bad luck is asking a bit much.

I don't want to check the current GC standings until after I watch the stage but I am going to assume Alberto, Cadel, Andy, Dennis, and a couple of other GC riders are ahead of him but will be hoping at least some were caught up in the same incidents.

 

[rabyoga]

I think Lance is just racing because that's what he does. I don't know if he is as concerned about winning as before. (Why should he? He's won 7 Tours.) I always route for him but I don't think he'll win this time. I still LOVE him.

 

[muffyn]

it was really pretty sad though that Lance was involved in three tumbles. the announcers were just 'feeling' his pain filling in the look on Lances face like :what else today!?

 

[FireDancer]

After going back and watching the stage yes, Lance's chance at a GC victory are over. It is unfortunate because it was as a result of crashes instead of poor performance. It was the second crash that caused the problem. It happened at a very high rate of speed. There is a video out there somewhere (I haven't found it yet) that shows he crashed not only while going pretty fast but slid about 10 meters into a curb. The crash happened just as Sky upped the pace at the front of the pack so Lance had to dig very quickly to get back to the pack arriving just as the climb started. It put him too far into the red to keep up with the pack on the climb.

4 of the top 5 GC riders have a chance at winning so counting on all 4 of them losing that amount of time (along with 2 or 3 others in the top 10) is unrealistic.