Agreed.

Reminded me a lot of Arnold S. successfully messing with Lou Ferrigno's head in the old documentary Pumping Iron. :-)

Another thing he (correctly) pointed out was that Rudi Pevenage appeared to make a lot of the hopeless tactical calls himself -- and refrained from correcting Jan's tactical blunders. Bruyneel vs. Pevenage has to be one of the greatest mismatches of all time. Even Jan's front wheel choices were absurd -- both on the key climbing stage and in the final windy/wet TT...

Jimmy Piersall -- talented/troubled outfielder for the Red Sox (not the Indians). See: http://www.historicbaseball.com/tms/TMS_piersall.html

Fear Strikes Out is the classic 1957 movie about his struggle with mental illness.

The comparison with Ullrich is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly.

I read Andrew's question (rhetorical, at least in part, I suspect), and your response just as I was leaving for a short recovery ride. Out there on the ride, it occurred to me how different the situation was when Beloki crashed, than either of the other two cited. In 2001, Lance was leading (the GC, and in Yellow), and Ullrich was his main contender. They were near each other on the stage, but not leading it. Lance waited so that he could contend in earnest with his closest rival. Same thing essentially this year on Luz Ardiden, except that Lance crashed. However, when Beloki crashed, he was not the main competition Lance was concerned with on the day. Beloki, Lance and the others high in the GC were furiously trying to minimize the time lost on the stage to Alexander Vinokurov, who was a couple of minutes down the road. Had Lance stopped or slowed, he would have lost the yellow jersey, to Vino that day, and potentially the Tour as well. He simply wasn't contending with Beloki, and he had been in 2001 with Ullrich, or as Ullrich was with him when he crashed, he was really "racing" on that day with Vinokurov, who won the stage, and moved into 2nd in the GC.

Dude: This is one of the problems with the internet and not reading carefully. Try again. He played much, if not most, of his career with the Indians. I watched him play on the order of 50-60 games.

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

The Cannibal would have buried the point. Indurain would have waited.

At this point, who the hell cares. The race is done and both athletes were satisfied with the results (well, Ullrich would be MORE satisfied to have won, I'm sure). All this talk of nefarious motives in Lance's comments bores me. He said what he said because he saw what he saw. This is what he believes. Again, he never said he was right. He just said that's what he saw in the footage. There are a lot of sides to any truth. He wasn't trying to bag on Ullrich. The only time he took a shot (probably a well aimed shot, and one that Ullrich and Bianchi would agree with) at Ullrich and Bianchi is his comment on that team's lack of communication with their leader during the final time trial. That was a fair assessment, I think most would agree. After the fact it became all too obvious that the lack of communication and morning course recon were tactical errors.

Vino was only 15-20 seconds up the road at the time of the crash and the gap was closing. Had Beloki not gone down, it is likely that he and Armstrong would have caught vino and those three would have had a go at the stage win. Can you imagine those three working over the last couple of kilometers to hold off the next group with the rest of the big guns in it? Anyway, sad it never happened.

Dude:

In a career that spanned 1734 games he played 359 for the Indians, 931 for the Red Sox and the rest spread over the Senators, Mets, and Angels.

http://mlb.mlb.com/...t=%23&select=%23


And this is why I love the internet. I had no idea he played anywhere close to that long. The stuff you can find with 47 seconds of searching always amazes me.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Which is clearly at least 46 more than I spent. Awesome job. The fact that he played in the majors as late as '67 (hmmm -- THAT was a nice baseball year!) stuns me.

Alan trumps me -- by the time I saw my first game in Fenway (I was 9), Jackie Jensen was in right and Green? Gosger? was in center. You- know-who was in left. Also worth a look: http://www.hauntnut.com/.../fearstrikesout.html

PS: I make him ~54% Bosox, 21% Tribe, 13% Angel, 10% Senator, and 2% Met (who knew that one?!). Tony Perkins can rest easy -- the jersey sticks.

All this just shows how competive everyone is and how next year should be great. Lets give Jan His due. It may have been a "rookie mistake" but if Lance did not exsist how many tours would Jan have won and we then would speak of him thus

At this point, Vino was far enough ahead of the chase (Beloki and LA) that he had no idea that Beloki had crashed. Of course he wasn't going to slow or wait. LA and the rest of the group couldn't wait on Beloki at that point because 1) Vino was already high up in the GC at that point and they could't let him gain even more time, and 2) Beloki wasn't in yellow.

Also, I hadn't heard that LA had said this, but we could hear Beloki crying out in pain on the TV... surely the riders (maybe not LA since he was off roading) would have heard this and not expected him to be going on.

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Reach for what you cannot.

-Percy Cerruty

>>Also, I hadn't heard that LA had said this, but we could hear Beloki crying out in pain on the TV... surely the riders (maybe not LA since he was off roading) would have heard this and not expected him to be going on.<<

Not to mention they all have earpieces in and Johan would have seen the seriousness of the crash on race TV immediately and passed the information along.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

[quote]The fact that Armstrong chose to attack guys who "waited" for him after he had crashed had me a little puzzled. That wouldn't have been a gentlemanly way to say "Thank you." On the other hand, if he felt that Ullrich and others had attacked him while he was down, then attacking them back makes more sense. Whether or not Ullrich attacked can be debated endlessly. Only they each know for sure.

[/quote]

Are you talking about Lance attacking on Luz Ardiden after he re-joined the group, after his crash? The (unwritten) rule about waiting is designed to get the race back to where it should be, without whatever mishap (crash, flat, mechanical, etc.) caused the rider to fall behind. Once they are all back together again, the race is "on", and anyone is free to attack as he likes. If the group was going slow, waiting for Lance, and he used his momentum from catching up and shot right past the group, THAT would have been a problem. But that's not what happened.

Lance got back with the group after the crash, and hung in there for a minute or two. Once the peloton settled down, someone attacked -- was it Iban Mayo? I think that's who it was. When he attacked, Lance responded like he did the first time Mayo attacked -- he overtook Mayo and never looked back.

He did not use his momentum and the fact that the peloton slowed to catapult past them. He pulled up, then responded to an attack from Mayo. That reponse is what put him out front for the remainder of the climb.

RP