Landis Takes Back Yellow Jersey
I try to keep tabs on the Tour de France every year and it didn’t just start with the Lance Armstrong bandwagon. I remember as a child watching Greg LeMond become the first American to win the Tour and it’s coveted yellow jersey. This year, the American riders in the tour were expected to do well even with Armstrong’s retirement. Some of the favorites like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso were caught up in a doping scandal and banned. This left the door wide open for anyone to win this year.
Today American Floyd Landis did well enough in the time trial to cement himself with a 59 second lead and essentially a victory lap in tomorrow’s final stage. This makes him the 8th American in a row to win the Tour de France. But the story just begins there.
For a few years Landis was Armstrong’s teammate and helped Armstrong win a few Tours. In this tour, Landis was one of the favorites. He started steady and strong, wore the yellow jersey, lost it, won it back and then lost it dramatically. In cycling terms he “bonked” in Stage 16, slipplng from the lead to 8 minutes 8 seconds back in one shattering day. This time difference is essentially impossible to overcome, especially so late in the tour.
However the next day in Stage 17, he rode one of the most epic stages ever in the long storied history of the Tour de France. He broke away from the peleton early which is usually a futile move. The peleton almost always catches such an early breakaway, but not that day. He not only broke away, he obliterated the field winning the stage all alone and making the impossible move from over 8 minutes behind to only 30 seconds behind overall. Oh did I mention he is doing all of this with an arthritic hip that will be replaced in a few weeks?
Sadly, this amazing sporting feat was overshadowed by the press sitting around waiting for a possible indictment of Barry Bonds. Sometimes here in America, we have no clue about what sporting events are important. It’s all about hype. Unfortunately Floyd Landis is not the focus of the sports hype machine here since he isn’t Lance Armstrong.
With his time trial today, in the span of 4 stages Landis went from buried and defeated to back in the yellow jersey and about to make history as the 3rd American (8th consecutive) to win the Tour de France.
