The Tour de Lance

The Great El-ahrairah just came back from another "invasion" of the beachs of southern France.  To any Americans who don't already know or care, Texican and current boyfriend of Sheryl Crow, Lance Armstrong, won the Tour de France for a record sixth time in a row.  Since Lance is an American, many Europeans wanted him to lose and told him so on more than one occasion.  I follow cycling to a certain extent and watched most of the mountain stages of the Tour.  Until the mountain stages, there was still a chance that he could loose, but after the first two mountain stages where he came from more than 9 minutes back from the leader to only 22 seconds and at the same time destroying any serious competition, it was really a foregone conclusion that he would make history.  The French are saying that he must be doping or something, but after seeing how he completely dominated his rivals, he must be a robot or at least bionic.

Here is another small fact to think about.  The Tour de France is such a grueling race that it's like running a marathon every day for 21 days.  As a result, many of the 198 riders who started the Tour this year dropped out due to injuries, fatigue, back luck, etc.  Depending on the year, more than 50% of the riders who start the tour may never finish, so it is unusual for a cycling team to have it's full complement of riders at the end of the tour.  US Postal, the team which Lance Armstrong rides for, finished the tour this year with all nine of it's riders, which is a tribute to just how well-conditioned the riders for US Postal are.  Just like any other sport, the team that is in the best shape at the start of the season is usually the team that will win the championship.

Lance may be back next year to try for a record seventh Tour, but in the annals of history, he isn't the best cyclist ever.  There are three major cycling races ever year, the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta Ciclista a Espana.  Lance has won the Tour six times, but has never won or entered the other two.  The best cyclist ever, Eddie Merckx from Belgium, won the Tour fives times, the Giro five times and the Vuelta once during the 60's/70's.  In today's world of specialization, I'm not so sure that winning all three in the same year is possible, but it would be interesting to see if Lance could do it.  He has said that now he has set the record for Tour wins, he wants to compete in some of the other races, so maybe next year, we could see Lance dominate these other races.  Only time will tell.