2005 Tour de France - Stage 3

It was another day of waiting to the last few kilometers to see who is going to get gobbled up. Today it was Dekker, Portal, and Bertogliati who had the peloton by 5 ? minutes at the maximum. Dekker was the last man to give up. At least he earned the polka dot jersey for his efforts. Some idiot was dribbling yesterday by saying Voeckler would try to keep wearing polka dots but that didn?t happen. Voeckler may have tried early but didn?t have the sense to go with the break. Leave it to the French to make me look bad!

Speaking of idiots and looking bad, I also said the sprinters may be too tired today. I can?t get anything right. Even Boonen agreed with me when he said today?s finish was too long, straight, and flat for his tastes. Oh well, at least I can predict that he won?t win tomorrow. Keep an eye on Boonen though. Who knows, he could be the next Petacchi!

Of course, we saw McEwen take comfort in resting his weary head on the shoulder of O?Grady at the finish. They are such good friends?NOT! It actually cost him 2^nd place. What a waste of energy to rut out someone you don?t like when you could have stayed focused and placed 2^nd. McEwen thought he had 3^rd until the billions of people who saw his head-butting move thought he should be punished for misconduct. Can you say ?3^rd to 186^th?? Repeat after me please. It was certainly justified for the officials to relegate him.

Ok, tomorrow will be fun. If you like ballet, you will love the team time trial. It?s even better than underwater synchronized swimming! My crystal ball tells me Discovery Channel will win because of a few better than average cyclists named Hincapie, Armstrong, Popovych, Rubiera, Noval, Padrnos, Savoldelli, Azevedo, and Beltran. Any way you look at it, USA will be wearing yellow.

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