30 July 2007
Alberto Contador crowned Tour de France champion
Well, that's it for another year. Summer is here (well almost) and the Tour de France is come to it's conclusion for another year on the cobbled Champs Elysées in Paris.Alberto Contador has won the Tour for the first time in a time of 91 hours and 26 seconds with Cadel Evans 23 seconds behind. While the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team won the team classification with an overall time of 273 hours, 12 minutes and 52 seconds. To quote David Millar, this may have been the cleanest Tour in history but it wasn't completely clean.
This great race has not been without it less pleasurable moments. Without mentioning the doping scandals there were some injuries that were sustained that could not be ridden off. These include Michael Rogers with a dislocated right shoulder after a nasty crash on stage 8 while descending the Cormet de Roseland at speed. He was in the ‘Yellow Jersey’ position on the road at the time. Other’s included Stuart O'Grady who was forced to abandon on Stage 8 from Le-Grand-Bornand to Tignes after crashing on a descent, fracturing five ribs, his right shoulder blade, right collar bone, three vertebrae and puncturing his right lung. Other notable withdrawals were the remaining riders of the Astana and Cofidis teams which was at the request of the Tour organisers (Amaury Sport Organisation).
I wanted to watch a clean tour (i.e. no doping/cheating) and I was very disappointed when Alexandre Vinokourov was withdrawn after stage 15 for giving a positive test for illegal blood transfusion from a compatible donor winning the individual time trail. A blood transfusion is meant to increase the number of red blood cells in the body, improving oxygen flow from the lungs to the muscles. Also disqualified was Cristian Moreni who tested positive for testosterone in stage 11. He was withdrawn after finishing stage 16 and he and the whole Cofidis team were escorted away to the team hotel. He was arrested by the Gendarmerie. Also pulled from the race was Michael Rasmussen, who was the race leader at the time of his withdrawal. Rasmussen was fired by his professional team as he was found to have breached his teams internal rules by giving incorrect information of his whereabouts during June 2007. He had told the UCI that he was in Mexico training, but a former cyclist and journalist, Davide Cassani told a Danish television station that he has seen Rassmussen in the Dolomites mountain range in Italy on the 13th and 14th June. He had also missed out some out-of-competition doping controls, which in itself is not an offence, it does cast a cloud of doubt about whether Rasmussen was using doping.
The Top Ten are:
1 Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel) in 91-00-26
2 Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) at 23secs
3 Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) at 31 secs
4 Carlos Sastre (CSC) at 7-08
5 Haimar Zubeldia (Euskaltel) at 8-17
6 Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) at 11-37
7 Kim Kirchen (T-Mobile) at 12-18
8 Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery Channel) at 12-30
9 Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel) at 14-14
10 Oscar Pereiro (Caisse d'Epargne) at 14-25
09 July 2007
Le Tour arrivé et parti back to the continent.
So I packed up my camera and headed off to Constitution Hill near Green Park to watch the Prologue of the Tour on Saturday.Sunday morning was an early start as I was going to watch the riders go through the City of London on their way to Tower Bridge and the proper start at Greenwich.
Once this was over, it was time for a French breakfast and to head over to Hyde Park to see the peoples village, the french market, and the World Handcycling Federation aroud the sepentine. (Photo's to be added)
A great afternoon of racing and long day out.
05 July 2007
Todays ride in London
Set out before it rained and got caught halfway through. For a Thursday afternoon there was a fair bit of road traffic and I got caught at to many traffic lights.
