Introduction
This is my
tradition: giving a live blow-by-blow report
of a bike race, mainly to my instant-messaging correspondent, but also (shortly afterward) to
my albertnet readers. Since nobody is
paying me, I don’t have to bite my tongue when I see something untoward, like an obvious
doper, or something really toward, like a podium girl. Read on to learn about the final stage of the
2014 Tour de Suisse, which (spoiler alert) ends up being a lot more exciting
than the Giro d’Italia.
Biased Blow-By-Blow – Tour de Suisse Stage 9
Well, I got
up at 6, ready to report on the second half of the final stage of the race, but
every Internet video feed I fired up was giving me goofy Euro types sitting
around talking about motorcycle racing.
So I read the fine print on steephill.tv which said the coverage doesn’t
start until 6:30. I just tried again, at
about 6:20, figuring I could at least make fun of the motorcycle commentators’
clothing, only to find the footage has started “early!” But wait, this is the footage from yesterday,
2.6 KM from the summit at Verbier. Johan
Chaves (Orica Greenedge) has just attacked.
I know what will happen but you don’t so I’ll fill you in. The way Greenedge has been winning this year
you’d almost call them “Greededge.” Did
I just type that? That is just
horrible. That’s something that a really
bad commentator would say and don’t worry, I’ll never do it again.
Chaves is
joined by some other bloke briefly but has now crushed him. He looks really good. Bauke Mollema (Belkin) is chasing hard. He was like 6th in last year’s Tour de France
and I consider him a favorite for the Tour de Suisse overall. He had crummy time trials but he’s a great climber.
I’m sneezing
so hard, it’s amazing this cat is staying on my lap.
Race leader
Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) is climbing like a climber, which he isn’t,
being a time trial specialist. I hate it
when time trialists hang with pocket climbers, and when pocket climbers win
flat or flattish TTs. So as long as
Martin gets shelled in today’s mountain stage, I’ll still respect him. If he hangs on for the win, of course I’ll
have to label him Not Normal (i.e., start doubting his cleanliness—I mean, even
more than is customary given that he’s a cyclist).
Yesterday I
actually missed this coverage, joining too late, but did get to watch the
podium presentations. Stage winner
Chaves had never won a ProTour race before, and was just gleeful. Big grin on his face over the line and again
at the podium. None of this grim Nadia
Comaneci stoic stuff for him, no looking constipated like Cadel Evans, and he
didn’t do anything totally lame like Alberto Contador’s standard “pistolero”
salute, which he always holds for several seconds just to make sure all the
photographers get it. Nope, this was
just pure glee, even down to petting the two St. Bernards they brought onto the
stage.
You can’t
see his glee in this photo, of course, because the feed is so blurry his face
looks like those creepy blank ones on the school kids in “Pink Floyd The Wall.” But look at that giant hunk of Le Gruyère
cheese he gets as part of his spoils! It’s
freaking awesome!
Okay, today’s
coverage has finally started. The riders
have about 45 KM to go. There’s a
breakaway of three just ahead of the yellow jersey group. It’s a pretty small group. Ah, and looking at the little status banner
at the top of the screen, I see that there’s another group 24 seconds ahead of
them. Of course, these aren’t very big
gaps. I won’t bother saying who’s in
these breakaways, other than Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin), who has the most
badass-sounding name in all of cycling, and Andy Schleck, who in years past
could have been considered a favorite but who, in his modern “all-losing-all-the-time”
incarnation only serves to make the breakaway look bad. Schleck lost over two minutes yesterday and
now is almost 7 minutes behind in the GC.
On the plus side, he’s off the drugs and high on life!
The break
has consolidated into one group and has 1:22 now. Martin has lost all his teammates. They’ve crossed the penultimate summit and
are bombing the descent. Remaining is
the final HC climb up to Saas-Fee. To
clarify, Saas-Fee is a little town with a ski resort, not what you pay for
Software As A Service. On paper the
climb looks pretty brutal, piling up well over 3,000 vertical feet in about ten
miles.
The gap is
up to almost two minutes. If it keeps
going up I’m afraid I’ll have to start noting more of the names here. Most notably, Rui Costa (Lampre Merida) is in
the break; he is the current world champion and sits in third overall in this
race, only 1:14 behind Martin. Costa, a
Portuguese rider, won this race last year and the year before. Bauke Mollema is in there too; he sits 5th in
the GC, another 36 seconds back. Ah, and
the 4th rider on GC, Mathias Frank (IAM Cycling) is also in the break, 1:14
behind Martin. He has extra motivation
here because he’s Swiss, so if he won he’d get not only the adoration of the
home crowd, but the “Bester Schweizer” (“Best Swiss rider”) award. Here he is getting that award yesterday:
Why the
horns on the podium girl? I have no
idea. Lots of spectators have little red
horns, too. I haven’t had time to
research it. But I did look up “Bruno’s
Best” after yesterday’s podium ceremony.
Check it out:
That BMC guy
was the Most Combative rider yesterday, and won a nice wooden bowl containing a
bottle of Bruno’s Best salad dressing.
He doesn’t look that happy about it, and I can’t blame him. If his solo attempt had stuck, he’d have won
the cheese! Have you tried Le Gruyère
cheese? It’s delicious, and no, they don’t
sponsor me in any way.
The riders
are still descending, and there haven’t been any crashes, so I’m going to
follow up this “strange prize” theme with a tale of my online real-time race
correspondent, Peter, winning a schvarkenslull back in 1991. What’s a schvarkenslull, you ask? Well, I don’t know if that’s an actual word—Pete
says it’s just what he and his US teammates called it—but it refers to the pig’s
dick he won in a race in Germany for finishing dead last. Here’s our chat on that lofty topic:
Pete: “I was in a pissed-off mood. I was dead last, but it wasn’t like I was the
first guy who got dropped, either ... it was a really hard day, and like 40
people dropped out. I was like the last
guy legitimately racing. So after the
race these German guys come up, chuckling, ‘You’re wanted on the podium.’ I can’t remember if I went to the podium or
not. I was so chapped because these
douchebags are acting like this is the funniest thing ever. So I got some money, a non-trivial amount,
something like 50 Deutsche Marks, about $50. And the schvarkenslull.”
I first saw
the pig’s dick in 1994 when I visited Pete in Colorado. It’s this very long, slightly curved dick
skeleton, completely encased in a block of amber and mounted to a nice wooden
plaque. He had it on prominent display
in his apartment. Really bizarre.
Pete: “So the question is, which is worth more, the
schvarkenslull or the deutche marks?”
Dana: “But you don’t have it anymore?”
Pete: “I gave it to [national team coach Chris]
Carmichael, sometime around 1994.”
Dana: “Didn’t somebody ask for it at the time, when
you were first awarded it, but you refused to give it up?”
Pete: “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”
Dana: “Who was it?”
Pete: “The only guy who could have legitimately
asked me for it was Carmichael.”
Dana: “So you refused to give it to him in 1991,
but relented and gave it to him later, sometime after 1994?”
Pete: “I don’t remember, it was a long time ago!”
Dana: “Dude, you’re supposed to remember everything about those days. You’re supposed to spend every moment of your
autumn years reliving all the glory days, when your life was exciting and
everything seemed to matter!”
Pete: “Look, giving away the pig’s dick wasn’t
exactly part of the glory days. Now you’re
pushing my buttons, bitch!”
Well, after a
mix of boring flat stuff and ads, the race is finally getting exciting
again. They’re all on the final
climb. Mollema’s Belkin teammate, Stef
Clement, goes out the back of the breakaway.
No, wait, I guess that’s the main group.
Maybe he helped earlier? I don’t
know.
The gap is
2:01 (down from its peak so far, 2:20) with 19K to go, all of it uphill. Schleck has been dropped from the group and
is fighting to stay in the yellow jersey group, and the sport in general. Cadel Evans is in this group, though I know
better (from the Giro d’Italia) than to expect a lot out of him, as much
as I’d like to see him win the stage.
(He’s in 10th overall, 2:30 down, and would have to have an amazing day
to do anything in the GC.)
Dang, more
ads! The Brasil tourism board, Hyundai,
and Samsung are all doing World Cup-themed ads.
I’m really glad I’m not trying to watch that. No offense to soccer fans, but (as I’ve opined before), pro soccer is completely whacked.
Martin is
really suffering, his mouth contorted to the point that he looks a bit like a
goldfish. The riders are really flying
and Jenny paid $23.41 for her Beats by Dre headphones. (Sorry, pop-up ad.) The gap is actually down to 1:49 now. The break, which had like 16 riders at one
point, is down to about half that. A lot
of pretty tall guys, though it must be said this video feed is kind of warped.
There’s a
Giant-Shimano guy on the front of the Martin group, doing a whole lot of
work. Now Martin takes up the chase
himself. This group is a bit bigger than
it had been earlier.
Gap is down
to 1:42. I suspect that Frank, Mollema,
and Costa are going to strike out again.
They have not only Martin to worry about, but one another. We’ve got a real race here!
Oliver Zaugg
(Tinkoff-Saxo), up in the break, gets some food from his team car. I guess at some point they’re no longer
allowed to do that. I wonder if
everybody is properly fueled? (I mean
properly, not inappropriately.)
Sander Armee
(Lotto Belisol) detonates from the breakaway.
He’s going backward. He’s a
really tall guy, or is that my distorted feed?
Nope, just looked it up: he’s 6’3”
and not ideally suited for such a huge climb.
Costa has no
teammates in the break. The only team
with more than one rider is IAM Cycling, with Johann Tschopp and Marcel
Wyss, working for Frank. I can’t shake the idea that their
team is sponsored by a dog food company.
That would be Iams. One time a
guy cornered me at a cocktail party and blathered for like 20 minutes about his
awesome career as a radio sports commentator, and when he finally (out of
politeness) asked me what I did, I said I sold Iams pet food (“out of my garage
for right now, but...”).
Okay, the
last volley of ads is finally over. It’s
under 10K to go and the lead is back up to 2:01. The other riders in this break are Andre
Candoso (Garmin-Sharp), Jeremy Roy (FDJ.fr), and Steve Morabito (BMC).
A Movistar
rider has attacked the yellow jersey group.
He gets hauled back.
Wyss has
just been hammering on the front of the break for a good while now. I reckon he’ll blow before too long.
Okay,
suddenly the gap is down to 1:36. Either
the yellow jersey group really picked it up, or the split was wrong earlier.
Laurens Ten
Dam (Belkin) has just attacked the yellow jersey group, and they let him go. I wonder if he has the legs to bridge up to
the break and help Mollema? Ten Dam is a
great climber. I raced against him once,
in La Marmotte, a brutal road race in France with three HC climbs. He deprived me of victory (along with the
next 187 riders behind him, who also deprived me of victory, and the 7,000 behind them, who did not).
It’s under
5K to go, gap now up to 1:44. Martin is
grinding away on the front of his chase group.
In the break, the IAM boys are right on the front, with Wyss continuing
to do most of the work. The last bit of
this climb looks (in the profile picture) to be the steepest. They’re on this little flat section just
heading toward it.
Wow, Wyss
finally detonates! Not surprisingly,
Tschopp totally attacks. Only Mollema
and Costa can stay with him! Tschopp
goes to the other side of the road to try to shake Costa. The problem is, he’s actually shaken his team leader, Frank, which really isn’t useful. Mollema is just barely staying in
contact. Morabito has blown and is
dropped. Zaugg is the only other rider staying close. Now Costa himself is drilling it on the
front. He’s been sheltered the whole
race and is looking really good. That
is, looking strong. I’m not actually
attracted to him or anything.
Wow, Costa
is soloing! He suddenly has this massive
gap! I don’t know how he can manage
this, he’s just brutally strong. Frank has made it back up to Mollema (maybe Tschopp went back for him?) and has now dropped Mollema.
It has
occurred to me that the Tour de Suisse GC is a race between two reigning world champions: Costa (road) and Martin (time trial).
It’s under
2K to go so Martin, still over 90 seconds back, will miss the podium. Still, two stage wins and eight days in
yellow ain’t bad.
Mollema has come back and turns the tables on Frank! It’s a real battle between these two, but Costa
is fricking gone, way the hell off
the front. He’s only got 1.3K to
go. Mollema and Frank can still see him, but he’s way up the road.
They’re
under the 1K banner. Mollema is
absolutely drilling it, with Frank dying on his wheel, but the gap is still
pretty big. Frank needs to stay in
contact with Mollema to hold on to second overall but both these guys are
assured of podium spots.
My feed
freezes just in time to miss Costa’s victory.
And Mollema has dropped Frank, but not by enough to pass him in the GC.
Morabito
crosses for 4th or 5th.
Wow, on the
super-slo-mo I see why Frank got dropped:
within 100 meters of the line he dropped his fricking chain! What is it with these team mechanics?
Wyss crosses
the line. What an awesome job he did
today. Too bad Frank didn’t manage to win the GC today, but I’ll bet he’s pretty pleased with Wyss’s
efforts anyway. Frank,
sitting down at the side of the road, blows a kiss to the crowd. Yeah, he only got second overall, but he’s probably really stoked about that Bester
Schweizer award!
Martin has
finished, and must be disappointed (though not particularly surprised) to lose
the GC victory. To top it off, the
Velominati guys will be bagging on him on their silly little blog for breaking
one of their stupid Rules.
Costa has
his world champion jersey totally unzipped, which is pretty lame because a) it
can’t be that hot on this Alpine summit, b) he has no chest to speak of, being
a cyclist, and c) he has no chest hair.
I just figured out why he did this:
he’s wearing CrampSys clothing, which I happen to know fits like a
damn tourniquet. I won’t burn your
retinas with an image of Costa’s chest, but here’s his victory salute from the
replay:
He’s doing
the chest-pointing victory salute, which either means “I won this race,
me me me!” or “I won this because of my sponsor, Lampre!” (Lampre “specializes in pre-coated steel
production,” so I’m not sure how they helped Costa’s riding, other than paying
for it.)
So just to recap, the stage
was Costa, Mollema, Frank and the final GC is Costa, Frank, Mollema.
Costa comes
up for the final podium celebration.
Here’s his glass trophy—I hope he doesn’t drop it. Now his podium kisses.
I have to
say, I cannot go on record approving of the podium girl tradition. But insofar as it does go on, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and any act of
rebellion I might make by refusing to watch would be pointless and ineffectual,
I go ahead and watch, and frankly, I don’t mind making the most of it. Say I’m eating soup at a restaurant, enjoying
it, and somebody points out it’s made with veal stock. I’m not a proponent of veal production either,
but I’m not going to spit out the soup, which after all has already been
made. Can’t I be ideologically opposed
to something without being aesthetically repelled? So I’m just going to say it: these Tour de Suisse podium girls are really easy on
the eyes.
There, I said it, and I guess I better shut up now.
There, I said it, and I guess I better shut up now.
