2019 Tour de France

[DrJay]

First mountain stage today, I wasn't going to start a thread till I read this nice description from The Guardian's live updates:

"Dylan Teuns and Giulio Ciccone enter the agonisingly difficult knockings of the stage, with Movistar’s Mikel Landa in hot pursuit. Ciccone looks the strongest as they enter a final kilometre of uphill, gravel strewn hell."

The GC is rather wide-open this year, a refreshing change from the last five or six years. Maybe it will stay that way till the final stages.

I've watched a small bit so far. Bob Roll seems to be doing a fairly good job of stepping into the late Paul Sherwen's live commentary shoes.

[Master403]

I like Bob Roll. The self-effacing humor that goes with barely hanging on in a sport, yet still having the technical knowledge to describe what is going on at the front is an entertaining combination. He's like the Bob Uecker of cycling.

[DrJay]

Liggett and Sherwen were such a team for so many years that it seems so changed, but Roll's lightheartedness and laughter are nice. Sherwen, rest his soul, was often a bit too stiff and serious, the straight man to Liggett's excellent dry humor.

[Conor Dary]

Bob Roll does a fine job with Phil Liggett...

[schigh]

If you haven't seen Off Script with Bob Roll, it's worth watching.

[DrJay]

Someone who follows this sport closely and knows it inside and out…..In recent years, one could probably narrow down the list of potential winners to three or four riders at this point in the tour. Is this year truly different? At this point, how many potential GC winners are there?

[Conor Dary]

Yes a weird tour....entertaining so far...also no Manx Missle....

[jazzcyclist]

It's a wide open race for sure. I really like the fact that yesterday's sprint stage included all the major players in good position when the sprinting started. It's rare that at least a couple of sprinters aren't taken out by bad luck or bad positioning.

[Conor Dary]

Geraint Thomas was impressive coming back from a crash today....I think he is the favorite to win...

[Conor Dary]

On the coverage today they talked about the 1904 Tour....it was pretty wild...

One hundred years on, the Tour remains controversial, tarnished by seemingly endless doping scandals. Some French newspapers have called for it to be scrapped.

The race is also used by protesters and demonstrators as a platform on which to express their concerns or demands.

But some of today's disputes look mild compared to the incidents that marred the 1904 Tour.

Riders were attacked, firearms used and cheating was so widespread that the top four finishers were later disqualified.

On the final day, when 27 riders out of 88 at the start made it to Paris, Maurice Garin was initially declared the winner for the second year running. It had been a rough ride.

MASKED MEN

Halfway through the race, Garin said: "If I'm not murdered before we reach Paris, I'll win the Tour de France again."

The French rider had reason to be worried. Before the first stage ended in Lyon, he was attacked by four masked men in a car, who tried to knock him and nearest rival Lucien Pothier off their bikes before fleeing.

Between Lyon and St Etienne, while local rider Andre Faure was making a climb, some 200 fans invaded the road to prevent the rest of the peloton from chasing him.

"Kill them!" they shouted while race officials fired shots into the air to disperse the angry crowd.

In the brawl that followed, Garin injured his hand and Paul Gerbi was beaten up and left unconscious on the road.

Tension continued when the Tour reached Nimes, in south-west France. A local rider named Payan had been disqualified a few days earlier but insisted on starting all the same.

When Tour officials refused, more angry fans threw stones at the riders demanding that Payan be reinstated.

MORAL CRUSADE

Between Bordeaux and Agen, nails were scattered on the road causing punctures. Henri Cornet even rode the last 40 km of the final stage with two flat tyres.

https://m.rediff.com/sports/2004/jul/06tour.htm