Smiling into the cameras and dedicating his victory to his late mother, Zoom-Zoom Froome collected his final yellow jersey — and then the gendarmes leapt upon him, pinioning his arms and forcing him into a brisk perp-walk toward a jet-black Citroen 2CV, which whisked him away to a windowless concrete bunker where. …
Naw. Nothing like that happened. The Big Three duked it out at the line and Mad Manx found himself staring up the heavily muscled arses of a couple really fast Krauts. Not for the last time, either.
Meanwhile, Zoom-Zoom pissed away nearly a minute coasting home on the Champs-Élysées but still won the 100th Tour de France by 4:20 (ahem) over Nairo “That Creep Can Roll” Quintana, who must buy his kit in the Junior Girls section. Joaquim “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” Rodriguez finished third overall, 5:04 down, and was already talking about bringing some fresh pain at the Vuelta.
I don’t know how the big finish looked on TV, but it looked pretty feeble on an iMac, I can tell you that. Pro journos in attendance who shall remain anonymous were deploying phrases like “complete and total clusterfuck,” “totally overrun with VIPs and cellphones,” and “they turned the Arc de Triomphe into a video game that no one could understand.”
And the game has only just begun. Zoom-Zoom is all of 28 years old. Says St. Eddy: “I don’t see who can beat him in the coming years, unless Quintana significantly improves his time trialing.”