Tirreno-Adriatico

Drongo

Stage 3 finished after a nasty, nasty climb.

CN report here. The photos are something else. Narrow and steep. It seems that most of the field had to walk/jog/shoulder their bikes, motos fell over, bedlam.

This link (shamelessly pilfered from dpf) shows Rodriguez' attack and victory, but it also shows how steep the finish was, so it's worth a look. Rodriguez says he's targetting Flèche and LBL: he can certainly get up a hill, so it bodes well for him.

GC after Stage 3:
1 Niklas Axelsson (Swe) Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni-Androni Giocattoli 13.56.14
2 Enrico Gasparotto (Ita) Barloworld 0.10
3 Joaquim Rodriguez (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 0.18
4 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team High Road 0.24
5 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes 0.32
6 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Team High Road 0.40
7 Markus Fothen (Ger) Gerolsteiner 0.50
8 Emanuele Sella (Ita) CSF Group Navigare 0.54
9 Tadej Valjavec (Slo) AG2r - La Mondiale
10 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team CSC

limerickman

Agreed Drongo - that final climb on yesterdays stage (3) was very tough.

Looking at Boonen and Bettini literally crawl up that final climb - put in to context how tough it was.
And the police motor bikes toppling over didn't help matters.

I was really impressed with Axxelson's riding - for a big man he climbed well.

Looking forward to stage 1.

Spoilt here - Paris Nice and Tirenno both live on television.

Couldn't be happier!

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

cyclingheroes

Online in 10 minutes:

Gerdemann crashed and will have surgery today. His TdF start is in danger:
http://www.cyclingheroes.info/id1408.html

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Cycling pictures


www.cyclingheroes-pictures.com

Bro Deal

That's too bad for him. Broken femur. Ouch! He would have come close to Cancellara's ITT time, which means we might have expected a great TdF from him.

__________________
"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Crankyfeet

He can be back training by the start of May. Is that too late? Yeah...I guess it's too late.

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thunder

no, he can make it.

be interested to test him regularly over the healing period. Testo and HGH expected


depends how his leg muscle(s) atrophies.

Crankyfeet

His leg is probably going to look like his arm when they take the cast off... unless they can use pins and have him exercising earlier.

Maybe there's some wonder drug that reduces atrophying such as testosterone... like you said...


This guy looks in a bit of pain in his run up to a long jump...

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thunder

but those guys are in such a state of atrophy in peak fitness, he will probably put weight on.

However, what is important is the functional muscle atrophy.

Crankyfeet

Don't they have those electronic interferential machines that can cause your muscles to contract with electic charges? I've seen them in telemarketing ads on how to flatten your abs while you watch the TV... (so that means it probably doesn't work or everyone would have one). We used to use them for physio treatment when I was playing sport seriously about 10 years ago.

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thunder

They work as well as the ob/gyn technician whatever microwave thingy as an insertion dildo. Like one ob-gyn got done for rape for doing one of those ultrasounds, via an internal search.

Eldrack

The TA route was fairly boring this year, PN was much more adventurous in it's choice of stages and was way more interesting.....

limerickman

Lovely stage win by Oscar Freire yesterday (Monday) : outsprinted Di Luca, Pozzato, Cancellara.

The man's positioning in the final sprint is awesome.
He makes his move at the exact time.

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

whiteboytrash

Huh ? You obvisoulsy not been watching ! They put a hill in on stage 3 that the peleton had to walk up and the police motorcycles stalled !

TheDarkLord

So Cancellara wins overall!