End of a great Tour de France

Well, as I’m sure most know, Lance made it to number five.

Congratulations on joining the Five-Timers-Club

Congratulations also to the awesome Postal Team!

Speaking of Lance, here’s a great quote from the recent Washington Post article by Sally Jenkins who co-author of the Lance Armstrong book, “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life”

“Lance serves no purpose if people think that he survived cancer or wins races solely through some specialness, some rare gift. The most useful purpose he can serve is to tell people it’s an absolutely universal human experience to be tired and ill. So “hero” is simply not a word that he’s very interested in.”(via Frank Steel’s TdF Blog)

I’ll add that this was certainly exemplified by, as Frank Steel puts it, Tyler “Freaking” Hamilton as well, who amazingly finished second in Saturday’s treacherous Time Trial, which moved him to fourth over all.

Freaking Amazing!

Although, I must admit, I was on pins-and-needles last Saturday watching the Time Trial. As much as I wanted to see Lance pull-it-out, I felt awful watching Ulrich slide of a turn into the hay bails near the 10k mark. I didn’t want to see him go down nor Lance win based on a fall.

I realize that’s part of the game and adds to the continuing drama, but it’s just sad to watch.

BTW, if you’re looking for a good summary of the 2003 Tour de France, check out Samuel Abt’s tour wrap-up in the NY Times. (FRR)