Jesus H. Christ. It’s awfully tough to take a bike race seriously, even The Big One, when nutters in tactical gear are shooting up movie theaters.
Seventy-one shot. At least a dozen dead. And the shooter apparently got it all out of his system — whatever “it” might be — because he just chilled out afterward, waiting to tell the cops about his booby-trapped apartment.
Is it a good thing that this maniac survived to tell his macabre tale? I’m not so sure. We’re all going to hear a lot more about this guy and the spiders in his skull than will be good for us.
Oh, yeah: And it’s long past time for Louie Gohmert to shut the fuck up, and for his constituents to repent for inflicting this festering pustule upon the body politic. Seriously. That nobody has pounded this fuckwit’s teeth right down his yammering gob and out his asshole continues to mystify me. I’d take an honest satanist over his class of blustering “Christian” any day.
Cadel Evans packed it in today. The last straw was a crook gut — well, that, and a Team Sky support crew that appears to be composed entirely of old Superman robots laid off by the Fortress of Solitude during this interminable economic downturn.
I’ve watched more than a few of these Tour de France thingies over the years, for free and for pay, and this drawn-out foregone conclusion won’t leave even itty-bitty mousie tracks on what remains of my mind come Sunday. It was decided at the first time trial, way back at stage nine, when the song-and-dance team of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome tap-stomped the allegedly clean pee out of everyone save Fabian Cancellara. To him, they granted the lowest step on the podium. (“Arise, Sir Fabian. But not too far.”)
Wiggo’ had nearly two minutes on Evans after the time trial, and by the time ‘Is Lordship reaches Paris the defending champ will need to hack into the Very Large Array to see Wiggins and Froome ascending the podium.
A crypto-PETA vet would have put this wobbly mutt down long ago. Yet we in the sporting press must watch it limp two-legged to the Champs-Élysées on Sunday, powerless to bust a cap in its raggedy ass lest it cease sweating money into our beggars’ bowls.
Meanwhile, chapeau to riders like Peter Sagan, Thomas Voeckler, Chris Anker Sorensen, Tejay Van Garderen, Jens Voigt and the others who have pre-empted this tiresome funeral march with their valiant quests for stage wins, team glory or the lesser grails — green, polka dot and white.
Poor Fränk Schleck. I can’t find it in my heart to judge him if he resorted to a diuretic. Think how he must’ve felt all these years, lugging around that hideously unattractive water weight.
The RadioShack-Nissan press wizard snapped this shot of one of the tacks pulled from a rider’s tire.
Just when you thought stage 14 of the 2012 Tour de France couldn’t get any worse, it did.
The Pyrénéan stage, with its two category-one climbs — which no less an authority than John Wilcockson had expected to provide “the best chance yet” for Cadel Evans, Vincenzo Nibali or Jurgen Van den Broucke to yank Bradley Wiggins out of his golden palanquin — turned into a nothing-burger of a training ride, with a break a quarter-hour up the road and the GC guys back in the bunch trading organic chamois-cream recipes. (Handy household hint: If you see Mark Cavendish at the front of the bunch on a climb, nobody is busting his balls. Except maybe Cavendish.)
That was bad enough for those of us trying to keep a live update, well, lively.
There were some 30 punctures, though whether that refers to tires or riders remains unclear. Evans had three flats of his own — the first left him standing atop the final summit with a teammate who also lacked a functional rear wheel, awaiting neutral service, AAA or the Better World Club, whichever would accept his Credit Lyonnais credit card.
Evans finally got going again, and maillot jaune Bradley Wiggins asked the bunch to ride piano until the defending champ got back on, though Europcar’s Pierre Rolland, Lotto-Belisol and Liquigas-Cannondale apparently missed the memo. Those rascals soon got sorted out, however, and that was that, although Rolland should consider himself out of the Miss Congeniality competition this year.
Robert Kiserlovski got the worst of it — Jani Brajkovic flatted after that last climb, Kiserlovski apparently swerved over to give him a wheel, Levi Leipheimer T-boned him, and Kiserlovski left the Tour with a busted collarbone.
Oh, yeah — there was some actual racing going on. Luis Leon Sanchez popped out of that break while green jersey Peter Sagan was having a nosh and rode solo to the stage win. Sagan had looked like the man of the hour until Sanchez caught him with his mouth full.
“Yes, I should have kept a better eye on him,” Sagan told Cyclingnews.” In the last few kilometers I needed to eat. I wasn’t expecting him to attack me at that point. He is experienced and I am not bitter about it. Even if I’d managed to stay with him I might not have won.”
Oy. Long day on the job for a variety of reasons, and no, don’t ask.
Nice to see Bradley Wiggins try to lead out Edvald Boassen Hagen for the stage win, but I’m still having trouble warming up to ‘Is Lordship for some reason.
Maybe it’s racial memory. He is English, after all. But then I always liked the Beatles, Stones, Python, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, etc.
Maybe it’s his manner with the sporting press. Pro athletes often forget that if they didn’t get any media coverage many of them would be wearing paper hats and throwing packets of spuds at strangers through a drive-up window, or standing up to their hips in something nasty with only a shovel for company.
Nah. It’s the sideburns. That shit has to go. Wiggo’ makes Bob Roll look like James Bond, f’fucksake.
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