12 thoughts on “One Word…”

  1. Pereiro and Kloden had monster time trials, especially Pereiro who is not known for them. And of course Mickael Rasmussen is king of the mountains again. Too bad Sastre collapsed the way he did; sort of a bad way to go out.

  2. Wish I’d been able to see it, but I gather that at least ABC may carry the procession into Paris tomorrow along with a summary of the race. Certainly the strangest Tour in a long time. But the irony of having a mennonite win the top bicycle race in the world is just plain sweet.

    I wonder what the effect of Floyd’s arthritic necrosis will have on his career? Can he have the operation and come back next year, or will he lay off?

  3. Damiano Cunego seems to have a lock on the white jersey.

    I wonder what the effect of Floyd’s arthritic necrosis will have on his career? Can he have the operation and come back next year, or will he lay off?

    He’ll be 31 next year. That probably means he only has a few more good years of cycling left in him.

    As to who will win next year, it depends on what happens to Ullrich and Basso. Personally I’d love it if one of the dark horses from this year won – Cyril Dessel, Oscar Pereiro, etc.

  4. OLN was expecting the ratings drop. I suspect some US network will carry some Tour coverage, even if OLN were to drop. I’d think it more likely that OLN (or whoever) will scale back costs in some way rather than drop the Tour entirely. IIRC, the Tour is about the highest viewership hours on OLN all year.

    For example, check this article from two years ago:
    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=cycling&id=1847617

    Some days viewership hit 2 million last year. Basically, OLN viewership of the Tour has been roughly doubling every year since 2002. Losing 50% since last year is basically bringing them back to their viewership of 2004.

  5. tblubrd,

    What French anguish? You can correct me if I am wrong, but nothing in the write-up actually points to a statement by a Frenchman in anguish. It seems to be a lot of unsourced speculation.

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