I decided to stay up past my bedtime last night to watch stage 16 (the decisive stage) of the Tour de France. Wow, what a race I spent the last hour and a half with my heart rate progressively getting higher and higher with the excitement.
It was really enthralling stuff to see Michael Rasmussen being badgered and attacked constantly by the two Discovery riders and Cadel Evans just hanging in there - amazingly the top four riders fighting it out over this long and steep climb.
In the end Rasmussen beat off both the Discovery boys, Levi Leipheimer came in second but eating into Cadel Evans overall 3rd place - Evans on the other hand made it up in fourth, kept his overall 3rd place but was almost in tears of total physical exhaustion at the end.Wow! and Wow again, I couldn't sleep for quite a while afterwards - I was inspired.
Michael Rasmussen, what a man! I even stuck my neck out after watching him go up the first real climb of the race and said "That's the guy that's going to win the Tour this year".
You can only imagine my utter disillusionment and incredulity when I flicked the news on this morning to see that he'd been sacked by his team and sent home from the Tour - apparently another drugs cheat!
What to say? Actually I've got nothing to say that hasn't already been said but I am hanging onto the belief that Lance Armstrong was the greatest cyclist ever to grace our screens - I believe that he was clean and drug free - read his books and make up your own mind. If I'm wrong then I'll lose hope for all of human nature.
Along with Lance there is still the Discovery Team, they are now leading the Tour, (1st team overall and 1st and 3rd individuals) and I assume they are doing so by setting a good an honest example. Let's hope so at least.
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