July 3, Prologue: Rotterdam 8.9km

In the past I linked to the cyclingnews race results, but I'm done doing that because all my old links are broken. Anyway, so, the prologue happened today and my start to watching the TDF was to get really, really angry. Surprise, right? Well, maybe to those of you who are new to me following the Tour. Otherwise, the rest of you will already know that my feelings about Versus are not positive. And today, they are even worse. Instead of running the pre-race show at 9 am and showing the race at 9:30, they had the race at 9:30 and showed live cycling at 10. It was especially upsetting to me because my favorite, Sylvain, was racing and should have been on tv. But I couldn't find a live stream at all and by the time I did (before Versus even started showing live coverage), Sylvain had already finished. I was livid (you can ask my parents, they were here watching with me) and I'm still pretty pissed off.

The race itself, a five mile prologue (give or take), shouldn't have been exciting and as I missed most of the race due to bad coverage, it wasn't. There were a few incidents, I of course missed all of them. I didn't see the stage live and that's fine, I wasn't upset about that. What I was angry about was what I did see live was not on my TV. At this point it time, I have no idea if you get more coverage paying for Versus (if only Universal Sports was covering this race, their commentators may suck, but at least I'd be able to watch it). When we left for the day, Tony Martin was winning and it made me really happy. I kind of knew what was going to happen, but I was pretending Tony was going to win the stage. Wishful thinking, of course.

I knew who won because I looked it up when we got home from the store (for the first time) and I was really annoyed (as those of you who follow me on twitter know). It's not really that I have anything against Cancellara, it's more ... well, okay, it's more that it's not personal. Except that he's too good and for some reason that drives me crazy. I can't quite explain it, but that's the way I get sometimes. But it especially drives me crazy when he wins and dudes I like don't. In this case, the wonderful (and adorable) Tony Martin. I'm glad we didn't get to see Tony's reaction when Cancellara beat him. It would have broken my heart and I was already annoyed at the first stage.

I like that Tony gets the white jersey and I'm okay with Millar being third. I suppose the best thing about Cancellara winning the stage is that Armstrong didn't end up in third. Yes, I hate Armstrong, yes he drives me crazy, yes I want him to retire (again). But he hasn't and I'm stuck watching him. And oh, god, Versus is in love with him. Hopefully tomorrow I will find a decent non-Versus stream that won't put a little arrow next to Armstrong (because do you really need one when he's the only one on the road at the moment??? NO. You do not.). But this evening, when I was doing my rewatch, the stupid little arrow was right there on the screen. Even though you know which dude was Armstrong. Even though they didn't use it for anyone else. Their Lance coverage is ridiculous and not fair to those of us who want to watch cycling, not just those who hate Armstrong. But when you have a half hour of live coverage available and you refuse to show it? Whatever, dudes. There has got to be something else out there.

I do have to say that normally I like short prologue stages, because they tend to be really exciting and fun to watch. Today, not so much. I do have high hopes for tomorrow's stage, especially the scenery. But most likely I'll be watching my computer, because I do want to see some cycling. If I'm lucky. I hope this TDF won't be full of me complaining, I hope Sylvain wins at least one stage. I don't know who I want to win the over all, or even any of the other jerseys. I just know there are things I don't want to happen. It's my fear that they will happen, because that's just my luck.