Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Stage 17

Ho. Ly. Sh-t.

Floyd Landis may have crumbled in stage 16 but today he proved that he is a true fighter. He attacked at the base of the first of five climbs and raced onward to Morzine to claim a fine victory in one of the most exciting stages in year. He began the day in 11th place overall, and ended it in third just 30 seconds behind Oscar Pereiro.

Ok, usually this is where I'd say "This is why I'm not a prognosticator," but today I don't feel so bad about it, because I'm wasn't alone in thinking Floyd Landis was out of contention.

Let me explain why. It isn't because I don't think that Landis is a superstrong rider capable of amazing things...it's because cycling is a team sport. The strongest rider in the world isn't as strong as a hundred strong riders.

Basically, every stage of the Tour you have a group of guys who are trying to win the stage. The peleton lets them go, because those guys aren't considered a threat to the overall goal, having the yellow jersey in Paris. If a guy who is a contender tries a breakaway, the teams of the other contenders will organize and run him down.

Last night, Victor and I were talking about this, and I said something about how CSC, T-Mobile, and Rabbobank would make sure Landis didn't gain more than a minute. (Victor pointed out that I needed to add Illes Balears, Oscar Pereiro's team, to that list.) I was thinking that was sad, because it took away Landis' chance to win the stage, which would have been a consolation prize. I was thinking he might get a stage win on the time trial Saturday, at least.

Now, the reality of today sure proved me wrong. All I can figure is that, since Landis was pretty much alone, the leaders decided there was no way he was sufficiently recovered to make those climbs and keep that big ol' time gap through the entire afternoon. (No way to prove this, but I'm thinking if Axel Merckx and maybe another green and gold rider had been there with Landis, the peleton would have closed up that gap.)

I keep saying...why did this happen? I can't wait to get home to watch my OLN tape, to see what better minds than I have concluded. I do have one other theory, or more of a contributing factor idea, and that is that the teams were so scrambled by the last-minute withdrawls of the expected leaders, so even by Stage 17 there's more chaos than order. Convention wisdom is right out the window.

But the bottom line...this is so freaking exciting. Those Lance-only twits who aren't watching this year don't know what they are missing.

Posted by Nic at July 20, 2006 11:06 AM | TrackBack