Friday, July 24, 2009

Stage 19: Bourgoin-Jallieu - Aubenas 178km

I watched this stage on mute at work and I thought about watching it with commentary, but I've gotten be honest, I'm not going to. The result pissed me off, and not just because Armstrong magically gained more time. See, okay, I like Cavendish. I really do, but oh my god. I am so sick of all the Cav vs. Thor bit and I was literally sitting at the desk trying to will Gerald Ciolek to a win. Of course it didn't work. Who was I kidding? It was always going to be Cav in a sprint.

Try as I might, though, I just couldn't bring myself to get excited about the stage. I had a brief thrill when I saw Sylvain was in the break, but I knew in my heart (ha) it wasn't to be. Short of a miracle break tomorrow or perhaps something special on Sunday, I've resigned myself to the fact that Sylvain's not going to win a stage this year. I imagine Quick Step must be extremely disappointed with this year's Tour. I also think they probably made a wrong choice, taking Boonen, but that's a topic for a different time.

I wish I had more to say about this stage, but I don't. Though I do have a bit to add. For example, whoever thought that road split right before the 3k to go banner was a good idea was completely wrong. It was ridiculous and dangerous and I cannot believe there wasn't a single crash (that I know of) . Usually this feeling of apathy is reserved for the Friday before the tour ends, and today was no exception. Though instead of an ITT to look forward to, tomorrow we have that mountain that shall not be named (shut up, I saw HP recently) but first we had to get through today.

Once the break was whittled down to nothing and people were attacking off the front, I had to decide what I was going to root for. Eventually I decided that I wanted the peloton to step up the pace and reel in all the attackers. I like sprints. I wanted a sprint, but I didn't want Cav to win. I don't think he, any more than Thor deserves any more glory. I know that it's not going to happen and I know they'll never behave like grown ups, but I'm allowed to be pissy at them and I am.

Hopefully tomorrow will be high on another sort of drama. I will be waking up at 7 am to find out! Sorry for the crappy post, but I gotta say, the stage wasn't much better.

No comments: