Stage 12 TDF : Briancon - Digne les Bains : Spoiler

whiteboytrash

French TV asked LA after today's the stage: "If you were Basso or Ullrich, how would you beat Lance Armstrong? (Long pause, and smile) "I don't know... Can I answer tomorrow? Or maybe Sunday night?" !!

MJtje

Ah well it's all hopes huh.......everyone is making the beltran fall HUGE. Well it's 1 teammember less......so they need to do a little more.......still they will get help from teams in the coming days. Tomorrow the sprint teams and saturday and sunday maybe some help from rabo IF contenders attack the 2nd place

A better thing to talk about is why did Lotto control the peloton with Merckx in the break.........!!!!!!! Only for some stupid points....for the green jersey!

Capt.Injury

It Did seem kinda strange to see several riders abandoned today, but obviously the big ones are Beltran and Boonen, eventhough Boonen isn't quite as surprising given the many crashes he has been in.

The drop of Beltran, will give T-Mobile and CSC that much more confidence in the Pyrennes, because they know there is one less Train cart on the ride. It will be interesting to see how aggressive the teams are especially CSC, since they seemed to be pretty passive so far (We all know T-Mobile is going to come out firing).

MJtje

Mentality of a winner........too bad the rest of the peloton always seem to ride for the 2nd place. It's slipped in there heads that LA can't be beaten........look at valverde, rasmussen, ullrich.......they all say it's impossible.......Maybe it is, still the mentality of the contenders need to be changed.......!

Rudy

Thanks for clearing that up ...I saw the commentaries earlier that he fell.

BTW, why do we allow such troll/trash in this forum with such behavior?

jhuskey

I will make this comment in regards to what you are conveying. When Rasmussen went out for the polka dot jersey and staged an amazing breakaway I think someone forgot to tell him he couldn't win the stage or the race.
Maybe he still doesn't know.
SHHHH nobody tell him!
You never know what you can do if you don't know you can't do it.

__________________
Sobriety is over rated!

limerickman

Who is "they" ?

No one expressed a comment about Beltrans loss : merely stated that he had abandoned.



Ever hear of Tom Boonen ?
He abandoned today.
He was a favourite for Green Points Jersey.

Lotto chased because they wanted to eliminate O'Grady and Hushovd break in the front group.
(O'grady and Hushovd are challenging McEwan, OF LOTTO, for the Green Jersey).

whiteboytrash

Did Beltran really fall ? Hmmmm.... I think there is a bit in this story......

http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1427

MJtje

Yep I know I said in my orignial post it was for the green jersey. Still it looked weird.........Merckx giving full gas in the front and Lotto driving in the peloton full gas........Anyway Mcewen should have been in the front group.....he realised it too late!

Lonnie Utah

My Zabriskie'ish (read sarcastic) reply would have been, "You can't, so you might as well stop trying...."

L

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Pick any Two.

thebluetrain

There was not one word about Beltran or Discovery in that article. You are starting to become a Doping Troll like Flyer. We sure dont need 2 Doping Trolls around here. Just cause your boys in T-mobile are getting spanked, dont resort to this. I thought you retired anyway???

whiteboytrash

I have been hired back in as a highly paid external consultant....

Well I watched the footage and he hung at the back on the team car and claimed he retired due to a knee issue.... he has been wearing a knee brace for a few days but 'they' claimed he fell in the first km ! They were only going at 10km per hour ! Come on...

....should also mention its bloody hot out there today.

thebluetrain

http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1430

thebluetrain

The team of maillot jaune Lance Armstrong also experienced a significant loss after the crash and subsequent abandon of climber Manuel 'Triki' Beltran. Discovery Channel team manager Johan Bruyneel is still unsure how the accident happened, but was more concerned for the Spaniard's well-being after he landed on his head, race doctor Gérard Porte advising Bruyneel to pull him out of the race 15 kilometres after he remounted. Beltran was later taken to a local hospital to have some initial scans, and is reported to be in a stable condition.


"It could be very critical," said Armstrong on the loss of Beltran. "With two tough days coming up in the Pyrenées, we didn't want to lose any climbers, and Triki's one of our pure climbers. Having said that, what's happened happened and we have to look to Jose [Azevedo], Chechu [Rubiera], even George [Hincapie], Popo [Yaroslav Popovych] and Paolo Savoldelli to pick up the slack. I still feel very confident that with those seven guys, we can still manage."