Prologue race report
Published by Halverde on 7/01/2006 at 23:41.
And so this year's Tour limped to a start. On the plus side, however, the doping scandal that has devastated the start of the Tour has left most commentators and broadcasters in no mood to crack their rubbish jokes. Mind you, even that is negated by the amount of boring discussions about drugs that we've had to put up with since.
Limped is the right word for the early developments in the stage. Sebastian Lang's time remained the fastest of the day for so long that it felt like he'd been wearing the yellow jersey for a week when the time finally got beaten. We actually wondered if the rest of the peleton had signed a pact to finish within a few seconds of one another as a show of solidarity, but it turned out they were just being dull.
The most interesting thing that happened was when "prologue contender" and "potential race winner" Floyd Landis managed to miss his start time. This prompted us to rapidly begin typing quizzical text messages asking people if he'd been named and shamed before the start. Sadly he hadn't, he just decided to ignore the race and play with a puncture repair kit instead, for reasons that are probably confusing even to him. The sight of him looking embarrassed as he belatedly rolled down the start ramp then immediately slipped into his comical "Praying Landis" position was enough to raise more than just a titter on a day that was already descending into a mess of tired cliches and grating "debates" about sporting fraud. A noble sacrifice, Floyd.
David Millar made his triumphant return after his suspension for using EPO. He set off a minute before fellow Brit Bradley Wiggins, and both came across the finish line in seventh place. But not at the same time. Once all the other riders had finished, Wiggins and Millar sat at 16th and 17th place respectively, with less than a second separating them. When asked whether he was happy to lose clean, David Millar responded, "Well yeah, but I'd prefer to win clean," thus proving himself to be the only professional cyclist who is even remotely interesting. If we were the kind of people who did that whole "talking to people" thing, Dave would certainly be a candidate for a conversation.
Impressively named Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd was the man who finally shattered Lang's seemingly indefeatable time, and managed to put a matter of seconds into prologue favourite Zabriskie and world time trial champion Michael Rogers. George Hincapie pushed hard, but still finished 0.73 seconds down on Hushovd's time. Even with Boonen finishing just eleven seconds down, Hushovd must stand a good chance of retaining his race lead tomorrow, given his current form.
Valverde watch:
Our Murcian hero achieved fifth place in the prologue, beating fistfulls of renouned time triallers in the process. Just four seconds down on GC, and a guaranteed win in stage 3? What could be better?
Stage/overall top ten:
1 T. Hushovd 00:08:17
2 G. Hincapie +00
3 D. Zabriskie +04
4 S. Lang +04
5 A. Valverde +04
6 S. O'Grady +04
7 M. Rogers +06
8 P. Savoldelli +08
9 F. Landis +09
10 V. Karpets +10
Limped is the right word for the early developments in the stage. Sebastian Lang's time remained the fastest of the day for so long that it felt like he'd been wearing the yellow jersey for a week when the time finally got beaten. We actually wondered if the rest of the peleton had signed a pact to finish within a few seconds of one another as a show of solidarity, but it turned out they were just being dull.
The most interesting thing that happened was when "prologue contender" and "potential race winner" Floyd Landis managed to miss his start time. This prompted us to rapidly begin typing quizzical text messages asking people if he'd been named and shamed before the start. Sadly he hadn't, he just decided to ignore the race and play with a puncture repair kit instead, for reasons that are probably confusing even to him. The sight of him looking embarrassed as he belatedly rolled down the start ramp then immediately slipped into his comical "Praying Landis" position was enough to raise more than just a titter on a day that was already descending into a mess of tired cliches and grating "debates" about sporting fraud. A noble sacrifice, Floyd.
David Millar made his triumphant return after his suspension for using EPO. He set off a minute before fellow Brit Bradley Wiggins, and both came across the finish line in seventh place. But not at the same time. Once all the other riders had finished, Wiggins and Millar sat at 16th and 17th place respectively, with less than a second separating them. When asked whether he was happy to lose clean, David Millar responded, "Well yeah, but I'd prefer to win clean," thus proving himself to be the only professional cyclist who is even remotely interesting. If we were the kind of people who did that whole "talking to people" thing, Dave would certainly be a candidate for a conversation.
Impressively named Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd was the man who finally shattered Lang's seemingly indefeatable time, and managed to put a matter of seconds into prologue favourite Zabriskie and world time trial champion Michael Rogers. George Hincapie pushed hard, but still finished 0.73 seconds down on Hushovd's time. Even with Boonen finishing just eleven seconds down, Hushovd must stand a good chance of retaining his race lead tomorrow, given his current form.
Valverde watch:
Our Murcian hero achieved fifth place in the prologue, beating fistfulls of renouned time triallers in the process. Just four seconds down on GC, and a guaranteed win in stage 3? What could be better?
Stage/overall top ten:
1 T. Hushovd 00:08:17
2 G. Hincapie +00
3 D. Zabriskie +04
4 S. Lang +04
5 A. Valverde +04
6 S. O'Grady +04
7 M. Rogers +06
8 P. Savoldelli +08
9 F. Landis +09
10 V. Karpets +10
