way to go, flandis
July 23rd, 2006 by herichon
I expect there’s not many of my readers who follow the Tour de France at all (well, except maybe Judy) but looks like we’ve got a new American cycling hero in Floyd Landis. His triumphant ride into Paris for the overall win today is only the end of the story – the real story was his extraordinary Stage 17 victory. You don’t have to be an avid cyclist to realize what an amazing event this was – the guy came off an awful Stage 16, dropping from 1st to 11th place and losing ten minutes off the lead. Everyone had pretty much written him off for 2006, but on Stage 17 he proved them wrong with an unbelievable solo attack, breaking away on a 10% grade at better than 20mph, not only recovering his lost time but at one point gaining almost ten minutes over Pereiro in the yellow jersey, to end the day back in 3rd place and only 30 seconds out of the overall lead. This is the once-in-a-lifetime kind of ride that every cyclist dreams of. Next time I’m slogging up the hills in Washington Park, I’ll think of this and be able to push a little harder. Thanks for showing us again how it’s done, Floyd.
UPDATE – See the latest above.
And don’t forget, he did it all with a bum hip! He’s going under the knife to have it replaced in a couple weeks. Kinda makes all the excuses I use for not doing my morning ride really shabby.
Hell yeah, I almost forgot about his hip. It was a legendary ride even without his leg about to fall off, but with that… yeah. I can only shake my head and smile. It doesn’t get much more hardcore than that.
arrrgh is right
we may have been sold a bill of goods, altho the jury’s still out. see http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/specials/tour_de_france/2006/07/27/landis.doping/index.html?cnn=yes
Yeah… I posted about it, and then because I was angry I hid this post, but you’re right that the jury is still out. So I’ve made this visible again for now.
[...] Side note – I posted about Floyd Landis’s Tour de France originally down here, and because I was disappointed and angry about this latest revelation, I hid the post. It’s generally bad form though to go deleting and hiding posts though, and it did reflect the way I felt at the time, and as friend Judy points out, the jury is still out, so I have made it visible again. [...]