Month: July 2013

Éirinn go Brách

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

Imagine my surprise. You can teach an old race new tricks.

After just one day of the same ol’, same ol’ — line up the choo-choo, hop aboard, let your boyos break everyone’s legs before you lop off their heads in the final 5km — the peloton finally muttered, collectively, “Fuck that shit,” and put the boots to Team Sky from the gun.

And an Irishman won the stage, which makes it so much sweeter. If there’s anything a Mick loves more than a free pint of the black, it’s a Limey on the deck where a bold lad can give him a bit of the auld shoe leather. A right proper hooley it was.

Sure, Zoom-Zoom Froome is still in yellow. But today is about the wearin’ of the green.

Two jerseys down …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Zoom zoom.
Zoom zoom.

The last couple of days at Le Shew Beeg have been, um, interesting, no?

First Cannondale lays waste to all the fast-twitch boyos and puts Peter Sagan in command of the points jersey. And then Sky croaks all the GC guys on the first mountain stage and goes one-two, stage and overall. Zoom-Zoom Froome even snatched up the polka-dot jersey for dessert.

Minibars in the Saint-Nazaire hotels will be in dire need of restocking on Monday’s rest day if Tintin and his mob tap that 55-gallon drum of whup-ass again tomorrow on a five-climb stage. And it goes without saying that the whispers have already begun.

“You have to ask them why they could not keep up,” said Richie Porte, Zoom-Zoom’s chief lieutenant. “Look at us all season, we are so consistent. This has happened all year. Look at Dauphiné and Paris-Nice. This is not really a massive surprise.”

No, it’s not. But maybe it should be. Here’s hoping we’re not in for a two-week victory lap that raises more questions than it answers.

Vulneratus non victus

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
HTFU
The bracelet says “Harden the Fuck Up.” That’s Aussie for “Vulneratus non victus.”

It means “Wounded, not conquered,” and it’s the O’Grady family motto. ’Tis a suitable one for Stuart O’Grady, who has broken nearly every bone in his body at least once in his long tour of duty as a pro cyclist. (He has another, of course, part of which you can see in the wristband I’m wearing.)

Happily, today Stuey was in fine fettle and helped drive the Orica-GreenEdge squad to victory in the team time trial at the 2013 Tour de France. The Aussie squad nipped the world champions in that discipline, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, by less than a second.

Alas, Cannondale’s Ted King was less fit today. Battered and bruised from that stage-1 crash, he was quickly dropped by his team, rode in alone, and saw insult piled atop injury when the wankers who run the race decided that he had finished outside the time cut, a hard-hearted and dubious ruling that drew widespread condemnation from riders, journos and fans.

It’s a bitter ending to King’s first Tour. But Stuey’s proof that a wound need not spell defeat. He’ll be back.