Last Year's Hero is This Year's Toast

3pm
They just started to climb the hills in today's stage and Voekler is already with the attardés. Forget about who's gonna win the stage... will our cherub-faced mascot from last year be able to finish? Wow... I don't think anyone cares. This is the value of wearing the maillot jaune at the Champs Elysées vs. for most of the Tour.

5pm
Valverde looks excellent. Basso, Ullrich, Vino all dropped. The answers are clear. Armstrong, bar some monstrous swoop of fate, looks clean to win his Maillot Jaune back, and probably for the rest of the Tour, if his legs are as good as they look.

5:12pm
Allez Rasmussen! Skeletor and Valverde look brilliant. Eh Pascal D'Huez... didn't I tell you about Iles Baleares?

5:15pm
The footage of Ullrich and Kloeden... could be from last year. Ullrich makes the bad face again. We are under 5km. Sure Rasmussen is going for the win. With still 5 more mountain stages this week, and the way Rasmussen eats mountains, I peg him as the man to watch this week.

5:17pm
When will Valverde attack?

5:19pm
Red Light!!! 1km to go.


5:20pm
Rasmussen attacked. Everyone holding on. Armstrong looking... strong. Armstrong attacks. Valverde follows... Rasmussen dropped... Valverde wins... Basso almost a minute behind... Ullrich almost 2 minutes behind. I hate this race. Armstrong is terrible...

You know, Armstrong does the same thing, every fucking year. He drives an insane pace up the hill, then sprints at the end. I think the people who want to beat him have to realize that climbing up hills that way is what he wants. It would be better to try and break up the team by doing intense attacks during slopes of the hill, and try and break up the group. If Kloeden, Vino, and some CSC took turns doing attacks, they'd probably stand a better chance than letting Armstrong play his game. It's really disgusting that year after year, I'm watching the same race when they get to the mountain. If there's one thing Armstrong had in common with Ullrich is that neither of them surprise.