Home » Voeckler holds yellow

Voeckler holds yellow

Posted on by
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

One more day again, eh Tommy? Survived the Pyrenees. Just like you did in 2004. You never fail to impress.

CYCLING-TOUR/

Image source: http://www.daylife.com/photo/0eqK9qQ9z2eRO.

Full write up here: http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/07/news/jelle-vandendert-wins-stage-14-of-the-2011-tour-de-france-as-thomas-voeckler-defends-yellow-jersey_184309.

I’m not quite ready to call him a potential Tour winner. He will need a substantially stronger team around him to achieve that goal, even if the maillot jaune has a posse.

But, I suppose Pickering may be on to something: Doubting Thomas grows in confidence.

Many have commented on the changes in racing, this year being part of the trend. The boys just look, different. The exploits somehow more human, more believable. Anyone can see that professional cycling has changed.

“I have probably improved since 2004”, Voeckler pointed out. “This year, I have the best legs of my career, but if I’d had the same legs as today in 2004, I still wouldn’t have been able to follow Armstrong and Basso.”

The main contenders rode two minutes slower than Armstrong did in 2004 and where three minutes slower than the record set by Marco Pantani.

“Since I turned pro in 2001, things are getting better and better in cycling,” Voeckler said, not afraid to speak his mind.

“In the past few years, I’ve learnt not to pay attention to what the other riders are doing but I do think the people who run cycling are working in the right direction.”

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/voeckler-celebrates-staying-in-yellow-at-plateau-de-beille.

Between the statements yesterday of Floyd Landis and Thomas Veckler today, I feel pretty good about where things are going.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

26 Replies to “Voeckler holds yellow”

  2. He is pure class. Balls of steel and an even stronger heart. I hope he hangs on to the Maillot Jaune. If Cadel or the Shleck’s want that jersey, they are going to have to collectively hold him down and rip it off of him…and from what I can see, that ain’t going to be easy.

  4. His overall team isn’t the greatest, but Pierre Rolland is a surprise. He’s done great work in the mountains thus far. If he can keep on protecting Voeckler, you never know.

  5. Very impressive. THE French have been impressive all race but TV has been inspiring.

  7. Great race all the way around today.

    FWIW, this might be a more realistic view of racing when a vast array of “recovery aids” are actually prohibited.

  8. @MM, got to disagree. Evans is riding with lots of heart. I think the Schlecks are too. Even Contador. They’re all out there kicking each other in the nuts, and it’s fucking awesome.

  9. And, I forgot. Voeckler is riding like a fucking super hero out there not just today, but every day so far. And Roland? That dude is a “nobody” and he is up there in the final group with Voeckler. Awesome work. I am more and more impressed with the job Europcar is doing in this race. Bravo boys, brav-fucking-o.

  10. Voeckler is hardly surviving in Yellow. He’s chasing down attacks and making the favorites work.

  12. Study break: Ok, did anyone else notice the Schleck Twins looking to Voeckler to chase down Sanchez? What do those bean pole freaks expect? Sanchez was 4:11 down. At less than 5k, Voeckler could care less if Sanchez scurries up the road. Yeah. The Schlecks need to stop looking at everyone else (including each other – it’s just creepy) and get on with it. If they want to win this thing, they aren’t going to have too many more opportunities to do so.

    Ok, back to the books!

  13. Agree with you Big Johnny. The Schlecks need to try to ride their bikes to the top of the hill faster than anyone else. This pretty hard to do if you are looking backwards for 70% of the time.

  14. creepy…yes, that is it exactly…and goofy the rest of the time, but the boys can ride…no doubt about that.

  19. What’s your opinion on Mr. Hushovd, then Mr. Motor?

    Or Cavendish? Or Contador? Or Schleck? Or Evans? Or Sanchez? Or Swift? Or Goss? Or Renshaw? Or Gilbert? Or Petacchi? Or Farrar?

    Etc.

    Wake up. Fo-real, doe.

  20. Seems to me, that this year the humans are racing each other and the “out of body” boys are gone, I am loving it! Ten Dam shows us just another of the harder than anything mentality of professional bike racing. Good on Ya!

  21. Many seem to be fawning over TV, but Flecha isn’t one of those people. He paints a different picture:

    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/flecha-wont-be-surprised-if-voeckler-wins-tour-de-france
    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/flecha-the-driver-didnt-even-stop

    I’ve no idea if Flecha is giving us insight to the view of the peloton or if it’s a case of sour grapes. It had looked to me like TV had slowed his pace and signalled the others to do the same after the crash.

    P.s. Of course the majority of the peloton continues to dope. It would seem that micro-dosing is where it’s at.

  22. So now they micro-dose so it has little or now effect but will still get them suspended for the same amount of time. Score of 10 for being jaded and illogical.

  24. YoRo,

    Google “micro-dosing doping” and here are some of the results:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/sports/cycling/26micro.html

    http://bikepure.org/2010/04/frei-admits-doping-for-two-years/

    http://thecatlinperspective.wordpress.com/tag/micro-dosing/

    http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/25659–difficult-to-detect-micro-dosing-poses-problems-for-anti-doping-forces?ref=topic&name=TIFF&title=

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1186552/index.htm

    http://www.bicycle.net/2011/uci-says-more-passport-doping-positives-could-be-on-the-way

    http://www.roadbikeaction.com/Latest-News/content/69/4273/The-Latest-Doping-News.html

    Jaded? Given that doping & cheating has been a part of cycling since the beginning (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/08/21/2000_08_21_094_TNY_LIBRY_000021524?currentPage=all), how can you not be? Illogical? No.

  25. Like the way this tour has gone so far but after so many years it is hard for me not to be more than a bit jaded. Cleaner? Maybe. Perhaps we don’t have the supercharged riders but of years before but it would probably be naive to think these guys aren’t pulling every trick they know, some not legal. Microdosing will still give you an advantage, and a fraction of a percent may be the difference between podium and the also rans. Hoping to see the fireworks start on the alps!