Last weekend another Tour de France came to an end. This is one sporting event that i do not wish to miss and I look forward to it every year. This year was an exceptional race with many an exciting stage and contested closely to the very last. The greater biker Alberto Contador won in Paris by a mere 39 secs over Luxembourg rider Andy Schleckt. In the last couple of days it has been announced that Contador will leave the Kazakhstan based Astana team at the end of this summer. The team struggled to pay the wages of staff and riders last year and this year they have not been the strongest team in Europe. Contador was, perhaps not at his best this year and he won overall without winning a single stage - which is very unusual. The struggle between Schleckt and Contador was a real epic that featured in every day's effort's but there was many another impressive performance. There were some fantastic sprint finishes with Manxman Mark Cavendish taking five stage wins and being only 10 points off winning the green jersey in spite of some disappointing results in the first week. But when Cavendish gets to the front in a sprint, there is nobody but nobody who can catch him - even after he lost his lead-out man Mark Renshaw after stage 11 when he was disqualified for head butting another rider in the sprint for the line.
Presentation on ITV4 is tremendous with commentary and inter-round summeries by ex-bike riders, who are lucid, fluent and knowledgeable and good at their jobs. The spectacular scenery across France and the frantic and OTT spectator support along every inch of the route, almost on some stages swallowing up the riders completely, all adds to the enjoyment of this great event. These athletes are superb. Out of an original start grid of 191 riders in Rotterdam, 172 got back to Paris, 3,600 kms later. The only ones who dropped out were ill or seriously injured. Several made it all battered and bruised, but they made it. Cadel Evans withstood the emotional strain of accidents and a broken arm and got to Paris. These guys are hard as nails and I admire them all - every one.
Roll on next year.
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