Rumors, rivals, controversy, crashes, titans, history and federal investigators…the Tour is made for TV!

guest — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:17:18 GMT

Who wouldn’t want to watch the Tour de France this year? It has some element of every popular television show combined into one. Seriously, it is the perfect show.

There is a fine mix of characters and many of them are handsome. All of them are obviously extraordinary athletes. Add to the handsome sportiness a fine mix of car racing type crashes, main character rivalry, past character dramas, reality show unfolding before your eyes, clashing opinions of titans and this is a program that has something for everyone.

Perhaps people just don’t know?

For those of you that are a bit behind or perhaps you have friends and family that needs to be convinced that watching the Tour is exciting…

At this year’s Tour, they were checking bicycles for internal motors. The rumor is that Fabian Cancellera, top rider wearing the yellow jersey, won other bike races by putting a motor in his bicycle. They called it “bike doping”.

Versus, the channel running coverage of the Tour, has a special one hour program dedicated to the rivalry between Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. ESPN had a special column on it as well. Can you imagine Lance and Alberto riding a tandem?

There are so many controversies, where do I start? I’ll just pick yesterdays on-the-road decision by some of the titans to neutralize the finish of the main peloton after a big series of crashes split the group. The route was deemed too dangerous to be included in the Tour. (Though the same route is used for other races.) The on-the-road decision was apparently driven by some of the historically anointed Tour bosses (current yellow jersey wearer and GC (general classification) contenders).

Unfortunately, it rained yesterday and a motorcycle apparently crashed and the result was an oil spill on the road. The combination of these two events made dangerous conditions for the main peloton, but didn’t affect the breakaway. There were so many people involved in crashes, VeloNews did a summary column. The stage winner was elated, sprinters were fuming.

Pre-Tour, Floyd Landis (past Tour de France champion and former team mate of Lance Armstrong) dropped a bombshell in May that he has information regarding Lance Armstrong being involved in systematic doping. Lance says Floyd is a proven liar. Somebody is lying and federal investigators are now involved.

Television can’t get much better than this. Well, maybe it can...the best racing is yet to come. Stay tuned.

Blog Posts From Tour de France Tagged With federal_investigation

Rumors, rivals, controversy, crashes, titans, history and federal investigators…the Tour is made for TV!