Champs and chumps

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
We have clouds early, but it looks like another hot one in the Duke City. And in Paris, too? Stay tuned.
We have clouds early, but it looks like another hot one in the Duke City. And in Paris, too? Stay tuned.

The sun rises on the final day of the 2016 Tour de France. Yay, etc.

It wasn’t much of a Tour, from a GC point of view. Sky — for whatever reason — is just too damn strong. And while Zoom-Zoom Froome pulled a few new rabbits out of his hat early on, after a couple of frights he settled down into his usual act, and that, as they say, was that.

A couple of Frenchmen proved fun to watch — Romain Bardet (AG2R) and Julian Alaphillippe (Etixx-QuickStep) — and of course there was Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), who is a race unto himself.

But Fabio Aru (Astana) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) failed to mount serious challenges. Quintana may have been suffering from allergies, while Aru may have been afflicted with too many Vincenzo Nibalis. Richie Porte (BMC) had that mishap early on, and Tejay van Garderen had the usual meltdown; if he’s gonna keep fading like a cheap paintjob he should really spare us the breezy pre-Tour chatter about how Sky might buckle under pressure and how Froome is beatable. Not by you he ain’t, Sparky.

Sprinters who weren’t named Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) didn’t have much to celebrate this year, either. He won’t be banging bars on the Champs-Élysées this evening, and whoever wins the final stage will go home wondering whether things might have turned out differently if the Manxman had made it all the way to Paris.

Meanwhile, that other race — the one for the U.S. presidency — is a long way from the finish line, and I’m having trouble getting excited about pulling on my pistachio slingshot and fright wig, lighting a flare, and running alongside the field. Y’suppose we could ask the Badger to push ’em both off the stage?

 

Red moon rising

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

I’ve been striving mightily not to watch as the GOP continues eating itself alive — it will get around to its big orange asshole tomorrow — but Lord, is it ever a tough ol’ slog.

All my usual news feeds are awash in pomposity, prevarication and psychosis. Not even the Tour could cheer me up today, and I took little pleasure in being proved correct when I predicted early on that Tejay van Gardenhose would enjoy his usual jour sans. Even an old, blind dog can unearth a moldy Milk-Bone now and then.

Tonight’s speakers list is a veritable Murderers’ Row of mendacity: Koch-sucker Scott Walker, Marco 3P0, Texas Ted Cruz the Gucci Shitkicker, veep-in-waiting Mike “Deadeyes” Tuppence, and Newt and Callista Gingrich, who probably have never starred in an adult movie titled “Mr. Toad Boinks a Robot,” no matter what you’ve heard about the uptick in porn consumption during the GOP confab in Cleveland, City of Light, City of Magic.

A red moon rising indeed. I think I’ll go crawl under my bed now.

Ventouxstep

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Froomey, this is not cyclocross. This is the Tour. There are rules.
Froomey, this is not cyclocross. This is the Tour. There are rules.

Well, you can’t say this has been a dull Tour de France. Not when the maillot jaune is legging it up Ventoux in road cleats before being awarded a tiny yellow bike by Mavic neutral support.

There should be plenty to talk about (for a change) during tomorrow’s 37.5km individual time trial from Bourg-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-d’Arc. I wouldn’t expect a lot of “There goes another rider. And another one. Aaannnnnd another one.”

Unfortunately, at least some of the chatter will be about what at the moment appears to be a terrorist attack in Nice. The evildoers don’t need box cutters and hijacked airliners any more. It seems a truck will do.