Tour de Floyd
Obviously there are more important news items to be excited about—Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Connor Schierman’s murder of four family members in Kirkland, Bush’s back rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel—but what’s really got me going is Floyd Landis’ amazing stage win in yesterday’s Tour de France.
You already know the details: having bonked on the last climb in the previous day’s stage, Landis falls from first to 11th in the general classification, some 8 minutes behind the leader, Oscar Pereiro. Written off by experts, and even to some extent, himself, he then proceeds to ride what Tour director Jean-Marie LeBlanc called “the best performance in the modern history of the Tour,” crushing his rivals and vaulting into third place overall, just 30 second behind the yellow jersey.
Awesome.
Landis has really grown on me; he’s like the anti-Lance: humble, sorta goofy, doughy-looking compared to most tour riders; whereas Armstrong seemed exactly like what you would expect from a guy named “Lance,” Landis strikes me as about what you get from someone named “Floyd.”
I love that after his blow-up on stage 16, he said he looked forward to a cold beer; I love even more that he conjectured the reason he did so well on stage 17 was that he had had that beer.
The back-story about his dead hip that’s going to need surgery after the Tour is poignant, but Landis has punctured what could be a mawkish Oprah-special blubberfest by referring to the joint as something like an old car that you may as well run into the ground before you replace it and suggesting that he might sell it on eBay after it’s removed.
In the New York Times magazine about his Mennonite upbringing, he was quoted as wondering about the logic of his religion’s rules against wearing gym shorts: “Does God really care if somebody wears shorts or not?”
Probably not, but maybe He cares whether Floyd wins the Tour.
You already know the details: having bonked on the last climb in the previous day’s stage, Landis falls from first to 11th in the general classification, some 8 minutes behind the leader, Oscar Pereiro. Written off by experts, and even to some extent, himself, he then proceeds to ride what Tour director Jean-Marie LeBlanc called “the best performance in the modern history of the Tour,” crushing his rivals and vaulting into third place overall, just 30 second behind the yellow jersey.
Awesome.
Landis has really grown on me; he’s like the anti-Lance: humble, sorta goofy, doughy-looking compared to most tour riders; whereas Armstrong seemed exactly like what you would expect from a guy named “Lance,” Landis strikes me as about what you get from someone named “Floyd.”
I love that after his blow-up on stage 16, he said he looked forward to a cold beer; I love even more that he conjectured the reason he did so well on stage 17 was that he had had that beer.
The back-story about his dead hip that’s going to need surgery after the Tour is poignant, but Landis has punctured what could be a mawkish Oprah-special blubberfest by referring to the joint as something like an old car that you may as well run into the ground before you replace it and suggesting that he might sell it on eBay after it’s removed.
In the New York Times magazine about his Mennonite upbringing, he was quoted as wondering about the logic of his religion’s rules against wearing gym shorts: “Does God really care if somebody wears shorts or not?”
Probably not, but maybe He cares whether Floyd wins the Tour.
posted by Professor Dave at 10:41 AM
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