Le Tour

It's Tour de France time again. I've been watching the race at work in the background, and I'm a little torn because I'm cheering on team Garmin Slipstream, and yet despite all attempts to the contrary, I can't help but cheer on Lance Armstrong's comeback on team Astana. I didn't want him to do well. I wanted him to let the young guys take on the tour, a passing of the torch. I was slightly smug about his 10th place overall standings through the troisieme etage - still a good showing, all things considered, but still behind some of the Garmin upstarts. In today's team time trial, a challenge that doesn't appear every year in the Tour de France, Garmin took the lead, losing two racers early on but eventually clocking in with the fastest time, with two other teams to go. All this despite Phil Liggett's assertion that they surely couldn't keep up the pace and finish with the fastest time with only 5 of their 7 racers (I think this has to do with both some laws of physics and a team player mentality - I'm still learning about racing strategy and such). At the first checkpoint, Astana and Garmin had the same time, but Astana was really booking it because a fast final time would mean that Lance could take the maillot jaune (yellow jersey the stage winners wear) from previous stage winner Fabian Cancellara on team Saxo Bank. Astana had to finish at least 41 seconds faster than Saxo Bank in order for Lance to take the jersey. In the end, Astana finished ahead of Garmin Slipstream (rats!) but only 40 seconds exactly ahead of Saxo Bank. I wanted to send an "in your face" to Lance, but in the end, I admit I'm a little disappointed for him. He's an amazing athlete, no doubt about it, for a 37-year-old or otherwise. If he does well in this race, maybe he'll call it quits for good (at least as far as the Tour is concerned), and focus his efforts on raising money for cancer awareness and spending time with his family. And as for Garmin, I was worried about Lance stealing the spotlight, but after their strong second place showing today, the press won't be forgetting about them anytime soon. Ride on, boys. Ride on.