The Offical 2012 Tour de France Thread.

[mongers]

Mørkøv has been in the breakaway for three straight days. And this in his first Tour de France! I like this guy.

Yes, real spirit and gave it his all before breaking to the Ukrainian.

[mongers]

Nasty bid, fast crash in the peloton with 30k to go; they were doing about 70km when it happened. 

Tomorrow is has the first long big climb, should be an interesting finish in the mountains and the GC should be mixed up a bit. 

[Liep]

Hesjedal is out.

[mongers]

Hesjedal is out.

I'm rather impressed by Griepel managing to ride the last 20 miles with a dislocated shoulder and still come 2nd.

[Liep]

British dominance in this stage, Froome was impressive.

[mongers]

British dominance in this stage, Froome was impressive.

Yeah, odd isn't it. 

I don't know where that extra bust of energy came from, especially given the severity of the last few 100s metres of climb.

[Scipio]

British dominance in this stage, Froome was impressive.

Yeah, odd isn't it. 

I don't know where that extra bust of energy came from, especially given the severity of the last few 100s metres of climb.

I'm guessing drugs.

[Liep]

When confronted with this statement "you can't win TdF without using doping" Wiggins replied "fucking wankers". I like this guy more and more. His final remarks were interpreted as 'cunt' by the Danish tabloids and 'cut' by Reuters.

[mongers]

When confronted with this statement "you can't win TdF without using doping" Wiggins replied "fucking wankers". I like this guy more and more. His final remarks were interpreted as 'cunt' by the Danish tabloids and 'cut' by Reuters.

Yeah, the thing is Wiggins and many of the other rides, pretty much the whole British contingent will be taking part in the Olympics 5-6 days after the end of the tour, so they''re going to be scrutinised by a more rigorous anti-doping regime than that in professional bike racing.

So if anyone is engaged in illegal performance enhancing drugs and so forth, they run a high risk of being caught.
And given that so many of the British riders are likely to be medallists, then a high proportion of them will get tested. 

I don't know why, but it seems to me that lard arses who can't comprehend that a fit person, who happens to also be an exceptional athlete like many in the tour, is capable of the physical feats the these cyclists manage.

Given they sometimes struggle to climb stairs, they can't get their heads around the idea of such physical effort and thus assume these athletes must be cheating; in a way an equivalence to how they are cheating themselves out of a healthy life.

[Liep]

Wiggins and Froome are completely smashing everyone else right now in the time trial.

[Sheilbh]

Exciting for the Olympics too.

[mongers]

Exciting for the Olympics too.

Don't get too excited, the Tour is a Long race, lots of unexpected things could have. 

[mongers]

British dominance in this stage, Froome was impressive.

Yeah, odd isn't it. 

I don't know where that extra bust of energy came from, especially given the severity of the last few 100s metres of climb.

I'm guessing drugs.

Actually Wiggins replied to this more eloquently:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/tour-de-france-race-leader-bradley-wiggins-in-a-rage-over-dope-slurs-7923479.html

The Tour de France leader, Bradley Wiggins, stormed out of a press conference in a fury yesterday after being asked what his reaction was to anonymous members of the Twittersphere who claimed it was impossible to win the race without being doped.

"I'd say they are just f***ing w***ers," was Wiggins' impassioned response. "I can't be dealing with people like that, it justifies their own bone idleness. Rather than getting off their a***s and doing something with their lives it's easier for them to sit underneath a pseudonym on Twitter and write that sort of s**t..." Wiggins then got up and walked out, bringing an abrupt end to proceedings.

[mongers]

Two excellent stages, won by Frenchmen from breakaways including Thomas Voeckler's heroic performance, are followed by today's win, again following an epic break and this time a Brit wins it.

Making David Milllar the fourth Brit to win a Tour de France stage this year. !

Oh and there's the small matter of Brits, Bradley Wiggins and David Froome holding 1st and 2nd place in the GC.   


Still another 8 stages to go though including 3 mountain stages, so all sorts of things could happen.

[Liep]

I have never seen so many british flags along side the roads as this year, and what a year to decide watching the tour.

And to piss on the parade, next year when Wiggins will actually be challenged (by Contador, A. Schleck and probably Froome ) it's going to be interesting to see what he can do.