Tour de France v. American Pro Sports

Great column from Jemele Hill today. She says exactly the point I'm trying make, exactly what Tour de France veteran commentator Phil Liggett believes: that the Tour de France is at the forefront and very possibly the downslope of the anti-doping curve.

The key point:
"There is no way American sports are any cleaner than cycling. In fact, if our sports were held to world anti-doping standards, the cycling's scandals would seem mild by comparison."

Accepting that, though, brings us back to an older topic of discussion in the Sauna: do Americans care? A lot of people care that the most hallowed record in baseball is going to go to a player who, by the Tour's standards, would have been banned from his sport a couple years ago. Far, far less people seem to care about PEDs in football.

To the flip-side then: why do Europeans care so much about cycling being clean? To understand that you have to understand the sport. I've said it many times before; the physical suffering these cyclists go through - in the Tour de France, in the lesser Tours of the cycling year, and in their off-season workouts - is incomparable to any other major pro sport. The effort IS the sport. That's why millions line up on the roads of France to cheer them on. That's why the camaraderie of the peloton is such a beautiful thing. These guys are a couple hundred Forrest Gumps 6 out of 7 days for three weeks. If they dope, they are cheating on the very thing that they are admired for. They are cheating the suffering. It doesn't hurt Barry Bonds to hit a home run, HGH or no HGH. Football hurts, but that's not the main reason why Americans love football.

Look at it this way: the best games in most major sports almost always involve exciting finishes, but the best Tour de France stages are also the least exciting at the end. The most exciting stage finishes are the flat ones, when half a dozen sprinters are battling in the final seconds. But the most famous stages are in the mountains, and the most famous rides are made by individuals who suffer for four hours but manage just a little bit more pace than everyone else.

Vinokourov and Rasmussen and the others suffered, but they did something illegal to manage their suffering. So the very specific thing they are admired for is diminished.

Two Notent Notables

• For a shorter, better editted, MUCH better informed wrap of the Tour, here's Bonnie DeSimone of ESPN.com. I wasn't a huge fan of the first two or three of her articles that I read, but I like her realism here. Here's another of her articles on one rider we can trust.
  
• My newest thought on Beckham is that if there is one thing that is true time and time again is that Americans are suckers for individual stars. I don't think there are only "non-soccer fans" and "soccer fans" in America. I think there are a lot of people in the middle who sometimes bash soccer but every four years they get swept up to varying degrees in the World Cup if the games are on at a reasonable time to watch. Those are the people I think the MLS is going attract via television for Beckham games. If they turn on ESPN, and David Beckham is on screen, they are going to watch much much longer than if he wasn't. Of course, I haven't managed to watch a single Beckham game yet...

P.N.N. I didn't want to make a whole new post about this, but Iban Mayo tested positive for blood doping. Mayo is known as an inconsistent cyclist. A few years ago, in the first Tour I watched, he was a top contender. After that he never came close again, but would have occasional excellent stages. I suppose that might be a sign of a doper. Certainly inconsistency was Vinokourov's profile this year, and Landis's last year.

A Week in a Day: The Last Week of the 2007 Tour de France

Prelude: This is quite long and thorough. I've bolded some of my main points for those of you who don't want to slog through the whole thing. As always, thanks for reading.


Thanks to the miracle of TiVo, I've got stages 15, 16, 17 and 18 recorded and ready to roll. I should have 14, 19 and 20, but something got messed up and I just spent 30 minutes on the phone with DirecTV trying to figure out why it was saying TiVo was inactive and unable to record programs. The solution? The same one for all computers: reset the dang thing. When in Rome...

Here's what I know:
Michael Rasmussen was kicked off his team or something.
Something happened with Alexandre Vinokourov too, I think. Chris left a message and started to say something about Vino and I took the phone away from my ear.

That's it. I did well to keep my head in the sand. Even for the Tour de France, it's difficult. There is a story in the sports page every day, and I've been trying to check box scores for my fantasy team without seeing the Tour headlines. I only logged online 3 times in the last week, again for fantasy purposes, and haven't been on ESPN.com once in that whole span.

So here's how this is going to work. I'm going to watch each day, hear what the news is from my favorite four cycling analysts, watch the stage and write a reaction for each stage. I'm recording the repeat of stage 20 tonight so the only day I'll miss was 19. Might be decisive, but usually the tour is decided by then. We'll see.

Ironically, Barry Bonds is one home run away from tying Hank Aaron and that game is just underway. Last night I watched Dontrelle Willis shut him down and finally came to grips with my true feelings about the whole thing. It makes me absolutely sick. This is THE record in all of sports, and Barry doesn't deserve it. I'll be much more excited about A-Rod getting to 500. Still, I'm keeping an eye on the Yahoo! boxscore since I can't have ESPNews on because even now I almost saw what happened in the Tour. Barry just grounded out in his first at bat.

Off we go...

Pre-Stage 15...

When last I watched, in Stage 13 Vinokourov just rode himself to a win in the Time Trial. Rasmussen rode the Time Trial of his life to keep the yellow jersey back to the mountains. Here's one thought I had about Vino that I never jotted down. Last year, Floyd Landis was caught doping on Stage 17, a day after he had cracked and dropped out of first place. That day he rode the ride of his life, won the stage and got yellow back. He was desperate. I think he went all-or-nothing and doped on that one day. He knew he was going to have surgery on his knee after the Tour. This might be his only chance to win. Whether it was the endorsements he was interested in or possibly just the glory, I don't know. But I think he took a calculated risk and got caught. The one rider in a similar situation this year was Vinokourov. Who knows how beat up he is. He was the pre-race favorite. Everything went wrong when he crashed. If anyone had that all-or-nothing motivation it was Vinokourov. For all I know, whatever Chris was talking about when he mentioned Vino, it might not be doping at all. It's just a similarity I noticed that I thought I'd jot down here.

On Rasmussen... I think it was a little stranger and stupider if he doped. Here's the two-time king of the mountain winner. He had a clean, friendly image until that silly diary thing. Why risk it all to win the tour? Maybe it meant that much to him to win the whole race. If he did. I don't even know. But that's what I'm thinking.

Just saw what happened in stage 14, Alberto Contador beating out Rasmussen for the win and moving into 2nd place overall. I really like Contador. I think he might win this thing. He's got a flippin metal plate in his head! That's Lance-esque. And of course, my new favorite, Popovich, did the early damage to set up Contador.


Stage 15 - Vino and Contador star

Beautiful video of this race. The Hors Categorie climb towards the end of the day came up through a fog bank into a crystal clear sky at the summitt. Unreal. I'm not into naps, but if you are, between the colorful flow of the peloton and the scenery of France there isn't a better sport in the world to nap to. Great race by Vino. I wish I hadn't had that inkling that something was up with him because I would have enjoyed it much more. He's got a lot of heart, whatever is pumping through it. Contador is superb, gaining time again on all the contenders except Rasmussen. Team Discovery remains well placed. And Yaroslav Popovich had his role in the days battle, as did old George Hincapie. Tip of the cap to Rasmussen for sticking with Contador, but what a difference a week makes. I just don't have the same good feelings for the guy after hearing he got the boot.

Happy day! Barry didn't homer. Long live Hammerin' Hank!


Stage 16 - Vino Out and the Penultimate Battle on the Mountains

Instead of the standard musical montage with highlights from the previous day, Al Trautwig opens things up with a monologue about doping in sports...segueing into the news that Vinokourov was doping.

From there, into a panel discussion with the other hosts. Paul and Phil say its a good thing that the cheaters are getting caught. Al continually reminds us all how silly we feel for cheering for Vinokourov, a cheater. Bob calls him stupid. I agree with it all.

What a waste of talent. I don't know what the details are, but I wonder if my Landis-theory holds true, if he turned to doping as his last hope. The silliest thing is every stage leader gets tested. Floyd got caught in the standard stage leader test last year, and now Vino gets caught after a stage victory.

Still no bad news about Rasmussen though... Tomorrow maybe? This had to happen. The more high-profile cyclists who fall, less who will dope and the more good guys will rise to the top. And I'm still hooked on the Tour and I still think this year is cleaner than any of the recent races.

Last word about the pre-race show: poor old Phil Liggett looks so sad. He's shell-shocked about Vino. He so wants the race to be clean. He just said that he hopes Contador catches Rasmussen today so I wonder if he suspects something about the Dane.

Today is a mother of a race with an uphill finish on an Hors Catagorie climb. Really interesting start to the race. Most of the field waited at the start in an organized protest in support of a clean race. Very poignant. Rasmussen didn't wait, but as the yellow jersey holder he has to go to start the race. I'd like to see something like that in baseball, like the Players Association organizing a one-day walk-out to protest PEDs. It's all symbolic, of course. But there is too much camaraderie in sports for whistle blowers so I'm not sure what else can be done, besides individuals coming clean about their own usage.

There is always a lot of writing on the roads of the Tour in support of riders and teams. Just noticed "VINO" and "RASMUSSEN" with a circle around them and an arrow pointing at a drawing of a red syringe.

On the first mountain, Rasmussen lost his lead in the King of the Mountain competition to the enjoyable new kid from Columbia, Juan Mauricio Soler. He's trying to pull a Rasmussen-'04 and win the polka dot jersey in his first Tour. Memo to Vino: training in the high altitude Andes is a legal way to dope your blood.

But the stage not surprisingly came down to the beast at the end. And after one relative down year, Team Discovery is back in charge. When they dropped the hammer they lost all of Rasmussen's teammates and were left with Popovich, Contador and Leipheimer (all Team Discovery) surrounding Rasmussen with Cadell Evans and Soler the only two other passengers

From there, Leipheimer attacked as Popovich dropped back, his job done. Rasmussen defended, Contador and Evans followed, but Soler was dropped. If doping was out of the picture, the 2007 Tour would have been decided among these four over the final 5 miles of steep uphill climbing.

Contador and Leipheimer started taking turns attacking. Rasmussen should have let Leipheimer go because he had several minutes on the American. But with miles to go he wasn't going to take that chance. At the 5km mark Rasmussen found himself leading the way up the hill, but with the two wolves from Team Discovery toying with his heels. Again, I wish I didn't know about Rasmussen's fate because at least for a while I could enjoy Rasmussen's climbing brilliance.

Never seen this before: Rasmussen was surprisingly whiny about the television camera motor bikes being too close to Leipheimer in first, so much so that he brought on some rare criticism from Phil, who told him to "just get on with it." For several minutes he was complaining and waving at the motorcycles. Bizarre.

With 1km to go, it was Leipheimer, Rasmussen, Contador in a row. Suddenly, Leipeheimer dropped off leaving the top two to fight for the stage. Just as suddenly Rasmussen shot off the front, cracked Contador and rode away. Phil Liggett all but declared him the Tour de France winner.

It must have been the best moment of Old Spider Legs' life. But stage winners always get tested for doping...


Stage 17 - Rasmussen Out as the Tour Gets Flat Again

No opening montage...straight to an Al Trautwig monologue. So! No positive test for Rasmussen. Rabobank tossed him out voluntarily because of a number of times where he wasn't where he was supposed to be. "Guilty by association," says Trautwig. "They're quite right to throw him out and may he never ride again," says Liggett. A complete reversal of his dismissive words towards the whole Denmark/Diary thing that started this all. "It's actually the teams and the organizers of the grand tours that are fighting the problem more than the international federations," says Sherwin. Roll says its cycling's darkest hour but Liggett suggests in a few years it might be cycling's finest hour. Sherwin, who I respect most out of the four, says he started to get suspicious after Rasmussen's time trial. Liggett implies that cyclists can go dope when they're training in the mountains, wait 10 days so it clears your system, and come to the race clean. Finally, Sherwin gives some observational evidence that Contador, Leipheimer, and Evans are clean.

Cofidis is out as well! Christian Moreni tested positive in stage 11. I've barely heard of Moreni, but it's sad that one guy can pull a whole team out. As Barry Bonds has shown, guys are more likely to dope on their own rather than as a team. It's easier to get away with it. I'm much more suspicious about Vinokourov's team, Astana, because of the performance of their top guys in the time trial. But at the same time, I do agree with the policy of punishing the entire team. Let's take baseball again. What if teams were docked 5 wins if a player tested positive for PEDs? If you can bring your team down by cheating, you're less likely to do it for the same reason that clean teammates don't turn in dirty teammates. At the same time, the full-team punishment encourages teams to self-police and kick out suspect characters like Rasmussen. Bottom line: if the Tour treats possible dopers like Rasmussen as guilty until proven innocent, that makes it easier for fans like me to believe that the cyclists are innocent until they're declared guilty.

It's fascinating stuff, really. And still Phil Liggett and I think the race is mainly clean. Says Liggett during the stage, "The system is working. We are catching the cheats. It doesn't matter how big a name they are; we're getting rid of them." So let's get on with the cleanest stage yet...

No yellow jersey. How terribly sad. Dennis Menchov the -1 jersey wearer of Rabobank just retired. Liggett speculates he's been mentally beaten by the Rasmussen affair and says he should have been the team leader in his own right but instead drove Rasmussen up the mountains. He killed himself for a phony. Imagine how you would feel.

HISTORICAL INTERLUDE
Here's Wikipedia's article about Michel Pollentier who got caught trying to give a phony urine sample after winning a stage at the famous Alpes d'Huez. There was no yellow jersey the next day either.
END HISTORICAL INTERLUDE

The tour is going to come down to the individual time trial of Stage 19...which I don't have recorded. If Cadell Evans lays down a monster he can take a well-deserved yellow. If Contador holds him off, he's a well-deserved winner too. Leipheimer is an outside shot to jump by both of them.

Today's stage saw a rare successful breakaway (they're more likely to succeed after the mountains have tired the peloton out). At about 10 miles to go things got interesting when the boys in the breakaway started to attack, chopping the group from 8 to 4. But in the 4 was one stellar sprinter, Daniele Bennati. The other three tried to attack before the final sprint, but Bennati nailed them back each time and in the end, the bottom line was he was fastest. There was also a race out of the peloton for ninth place because of the points available to the green jersey competitors won by the best sprinter this year, Tom Boonen.

Stage 18 - Normalcy, whatever that means

Hooray! This one started with a highlights montage instead of an Al Trautwig monologue and Phil Liggett doesn't look like he spent the night sobbing. Much better. Paul Sherwin notes that sprinters have very rarely been implicated in PEDs and doping. Flat stage = sprinter stage = a stage for the good guys.

For the second time this Tour, a cyclist hit a dog. This time the incident was a bit more serious, as one rider who was in the breakaway had to drop back to the peloton due to his injuries. The dog, again, was fine. Amazingly though, Sandy Casar, the cyclist who actually hit the dog and tore his shorts to reveal an ever-growing bruise won the stage with a clever attack across the inside of a divided bend in the road. The three chasers actually caught him but never finished him off and the veteran, a familiar name even to me for several second place finishes, gets his first ever stage victory. As for the green jersey, Tom Boonen grabbed a close 5th place to seal the deal. Well done, Belgian Bullet.


Stage 20 - Conclusion (What did I miss?)

"A time trial for the ages has made this one of the closest Tours in history..." Trautwig in the opening montage. Whoa. Usually the green jersey is still up for grabs but the yellow jersey is sealed up. This time the 3 boys at the top are separated by only 31 seconds. Leipheimer won the time trial stage. Evans was faster than Contador but not by enough! The 24-year-old wore yellow this morning... is he still wearing it tonight?

First off, is Contador clean? Rasmussen had a steady, endless stream of energy. Contador climbed like we all climb on our bikes. Short burst standing up...recover...short burst...recover. His bursts were faster than everyone, but someone has to be fastest. Plus he's 24-years-old and he's got that metal plate in his head from surgery after a brain aneurism that you've got to think gives him a mental edge over pain just like Lance had (he read Lance's book while recovering). Both Contador and Leipheimer were set up by strong teammates. As for Evans, he rode defensively in the mountains, grinding out every second to stake his position on the podium. He emptied his tank every day, unlike, it seemed, Rasmussen. One of these guys won the Tour. I really hope they're all clean. I think they are. I'm cheering for them. What else can I do?

Even with the race so close, the last stage had the same mood as it traditionally does: relaxed and festive. The stage is very short, so 23 seconds is a lot of time. Still, there are a couple of time bonuses along the way at 2 different points, and the stage win gives a big time bonus. If Evans grabs all of those and a couple more seconds, he could do it. If he somehow sprints away from Contador, that might do it too. But there is a tradition that no one will battle for the win on stage 20. The war is over. Stage 20 is the triumphant march home.

23 seconds is longer than you think. Evans isn't just racing Contador. The big sprinters will be lining up for the win. Discovery will be surrounding Contador and guiding him past Evans. The speeds for the final laps around Paris are always very high, preventing breakaways. It's just not that realistic. That's why I'm sitting here watching Evans...do nothing.

In the end, Daniele Benatti won another stage. Contador wins the 2007 Tour de France.

So there you go. There's a lot of cynical thoughts out there about the tour that I haven't even begun to wade into. Honestly, I feel more cynical about the sports where PEDs would be helpful but few signs of them have cropped up (NFL). And despite the cheaters there remains a distinct difference between cycling and other sports. When you ride in the Tour, you spend hours suffering alongside your fellow competitors for 21 stages. You make friends and a few enemies. But there is a camaraderie in the peloton unlike any other sport. Vino and Rasmussen are out of that peleton. I'm not naive enough to think cyclists won't dope because of the camaraderie, but I do believe it is a significant deterrent that all other sports lack. That is, I believe in peer pressure. And I think peer pressure is a greater force in cycling than in other sports. Getting caught doping destroys your team and alienates you forever from your fellow cyclists.

Congratulations to Alberto Contador, Juan Maricio Soler, and Tom Boonen. (I think.)

Re: Beckham

I'm a little bit sick of all this Beckham mania. Frankly, I'm more excited about Juan Pablo Angel coupling with Jozy Altidore in New York than I am about anything else MLS related this year.

This is where I come down, though:
1) Non-soccer fans over the age of 15 will never be rabid soccer fans.
2) Therefore, marketing efforts targeted exclusively at those people are misguided.
3) Most soccer fans in the USA do not follow the MLS, but instead European leagues.
4) Marketing efforts that target those soccer fans are good ideas.
5) Beckham is a great player. If he helps the quality of the league, and helps make it more socially acceptable for other European stars to join the MLS, then he's worth every penny.
6) Beckham is a great media personality. Eh. That doesn't matter. Non-soccer fans over the age of 15 might watch a few games, but they'll never stick.

Game on. I'm taping it, but that's because it is Chelsea. Joe Cole!

The NBA's worst nightmare

It is clearly devastating for the NBA that one of their referees appears to be a mob-connected game fixer. Ouch.

For me, though, that wasn't the worst NBA news of today. No. The worst news was that the (Oklahoma City) Sonics traded for Kurt Thomas.

Man.

Too bad they aren't Seattle's team! Holy cow, Sam Presti is a superhero. It is almost impossible for me to imagine how good this franchise is going to be in 5 years. Kevin Durant? Jeff Green? OJ Mayo? (Because we're clearly going to have the first pick in next year's draft, too, so bad will we suck in 2007-2008). And then four first round picks in the following two drafts?

Insane. Sam Presti has been outright robbing other NBA franchises. He's already my favorite Sonic. Crazy, right? Too bad he's moving, too. Ugh. I could cry you a river.

For the sake of a quick update, Clay Bennett (Sonics owner) said yesterday that he wanted to meet with the mayor of Seattle to discuss arena options, even though a ballot initiative last fall essentially handcuffed the mayor completely. So, like, that's going nowhere. Today, Bennett came on Seattle sports radio and acted like a spoiled child. His position is that the city and the state should pursue him, and bring him stadium solutions, and let him pick the best option. That is soooooooooo not going to happen I could vomit. There are three groups trying to please the Sonics, and none of them is Seattle or Washington state: Instead, Bennett needs to be working with the cities of Renton, Bellevue, and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. They are all trying to come up with stadium plans. The city of Seattle and the state of Washington are not going to help. Please. Learn that. Work with it.

"The reality is, we own the team," Bennett said this morning. "We are dependent on the community to find a way to get the building done."

Hardly. You have a building that the city built 10 years ago. You have a building. You have a lease. But, you want a new building. So, the community owes you nothing. You are holding the community hostage. It is not the other way around. At the very least you could remember that.

Tour Favorite goes out with a bang

I just logged on to The Sports Sauna and discovered a link to Mom's the Word, a maternity clothing store, on the google ad bar above my last Notent Notables post. There are no words.

A few thoughts from the Tour as I sit down to watch today's TiVo'ed stage.

First off, Michael Rasmussen was cut from the Danish cycling team for being two days late in turning in his June diary that all cyclists now need to keep to account for their whereabouts at all times. This is ridiculous. We know its ridiculous because even the Tour de France says its an overreaction by the Danish cycling authority. It is not going to affect the current yellow jersey holder's status in the tour, but as it stands right now we won't see Rasmussen in the Beijing Olympics.

---

Yesterday's stage was fascinating. You can usually predict the way flat stages are going to play out: an early breakaway gets reeled in just in time for the sprinters to battle it out over the final kilometers. The top contenders and their teams are usually content to let the sprinters and their teams control the race. But yesterday I saw something I've never seen: Team Astana put the hammer down in the middle of the race, whipping up the pace for their Tour contender, poor old Alexandre Vinokourov. Vino crashed a week ago. He's got stitches in his knees and one of them might be septic. I'm not a doctor, but I don't like to hear the word "septic" to describe any part of the body.

But there was Vino, rolling along in the 10th fastest stage in the history of the event (measured in average speed), with his boys leading the way. The strategy, it seems, was to let the high winds of the day slice up the field. Normally of course, the peloton protects everyone from the wind. If the winds are heavy and hitting the the peloton from the side, you've got to make sure you stay in the peloton. When Astana whipped up the pace, gaps formed in the peloton and quickly stretched wide open. The one significant casualty of the move was the French rider, Christophe Moreau. He never caught back up to the front and dropped out of 6th place overall.

Most amazingly, with a few kilometers to go and the sprinters lining up for the finish, Vinokourov tried one last ditch effort and, his heavily wrapped knees pumping furiously, broke away from the pack. For a moment, it seemed like he might win the stage and get the small time bonus that comes with a victory. But just as quickly the peloton pulled him back and he was done. Alexandre Vinokourov will not win the Tour de France, but as Neil Young says, its better to burn out than to fade away.

A Few Notent Notables

• I finally read the comments to my All-Star game post and put up a response. If Justin and Chris and anyone else wants to continue the discussion, I'll add more. Here's the direct link. I stand by my broader list of All-Timers. Even if Ichiro doesn't make the HOF, he's someone I'll talk about for the rest of my life. But I do like Justin's unique classification of Manny Ramirez in the "Manny Ramirez" category. He's not quite on par with some of the other guys on that level, but you can't put him down a notch either. He's so quirky, we'll never forget him. He's the best RBI guy of the past decade. He's Manny Ramirez.
• I'm trying to cut back on the amount I post about PEDs, but I figured I should weigh in on the latest cyclist to test positive. First off, I've watched every single leg this year (with TiVo I can knock them off in an hour and a half) and many stages from the past three years and I've never heard of Patrik Sinkewitz. Second, I think his positive test is very overblown which is bad but also good. It's bad because it's getting the most coverage I've seen of the Tour on ESPN.com. It's good because one positive test is causing such a strong backlash from cyclists and media. I'm even more convinced that this is the cleanest Tour in 20 years. The punishments for doping are so severe and the damage to a riders reputation is so great, I believe most cyclists will decide its not worth it.
• What a great weekend for the Sports Sauna! The British Open, David Beckham in the MLS, and the Tour de France hits the Pyrenees. Alas, it's also going to be quite a busy weekend for me so I probably will only catch the Open live.
  

Don't Believe What You Read, Levi Leipheimer Won't Win

If you're not watching the Tour de France, but casually following it, you might be under the impression that Levi Leipheimer - American and leader of Team Discovery - is right in the mix for the race.

I think Versus is really hoping Levi will be competing for the yellow jersey. I think Levi believes he has a chance, as does Team Discovery. But I also think Team Discovery now knows they have a better chance with Alberto Contador, the brilliant 24-year-old who finished 4th to Levi's 7th in today's inconclusive yet illuminating day on the final stage of the Alps.

I don't even think Levi is the second best rider right now for Team Discovery. That title belongs with Yaroslav Popovich, the Ukrainian holdover from the Armstrong days. Popovich, still only 26, could probably be contending for the King of the Mountains competition if he wasn't pouring out his sweat for the greater cause of Team Discovery. Today, that meant getting an early breakaway going and staying out ahead so that when either Levi or Contador decided they felt strong and could attack, he would be there to spring them onward. I love Popovich, and you would too if you had seen the huge grin he wore as he dragged himself to the line in 13th place after leading or riding far ahead in 2nd for most of the race. He gave up his own chance at the stage to boost Contador's chance for the entire Tour.

But back to Levi, who is 33-years-old by the way. Granted, I've only watched him in action on the Tour de France and only for the past couple years. But I have never once seen him attack. I've only seen him defend. (By defend, I mean he'll react to a surge by another contender to not let them escape.) He doesn't seem to have the killer instinct of Lance Armstrong, or the heart that Floyd Landis showed last year, even if he was doping.

On Sunday, the French rider Christophe Moreau, another seasoned veteran at 37, showed tremendous heart by attacking repeatedly. He would have done major damage to several contenders, including Leipheimer, if the half dozen other contenders who stayed with him on the attacks had gotten organized and worked together up the final climb. That would have solidified the gap they had built up. But Moreau kept attacking and that little group never got organized. The commentator Phil Liggett said that it takes brains as well as heart to win the Tour de France.

Levi Leipheimer is the flip side of Christophe Moreau. Levi is all brains. He doesn't have the gusto to go for an attack. Perhaps he also doesn't have the legs. But Contador seems to have the heart and the legs.

If I'm Team Discovery, I set up Contador later this week when the Tour moves into the Pyrenees and let him attack, with support from Popovich and hopefully George Hincapie if the latter regains his missing form. They support Leipheimer too, but Leipheimer is the backup plan, shadowing the front pack that Contador will attack from.

One thing that could change that strategy is if Levi lays down a monster individual time trial on Saturday, the day before the Tour returns to the high mountains. He's an excellent Time Trialer, supposedly. But the Tour de France brings out the best in a lot of riders. I've seen nothing to believe Levi can take his game to another level.

Team Cycling: The Anti-Adus

Each team gets to take 9 riders to the Tour de France. Usually, the top rider of each team - the guy who's going for the Tour victory - wears a number ending in "1." Lance, for example, always wore number 1, awarded to last year's tour winner, with the rest of Team Discovery wearing 2-9. (The Tour decided not to award numbers 1-9 this year since there is no official winner from last year's tour.) Here are some of the tasks you might have as a number 9 rider:

• Ride as fast as you can for as long as you can at the front of the peloton if your team wants to speed up the race to catch a breakaway.
  
• At the end of a flat race, lead a line of your teammates with your best sprinter at the back to give him a shot at the stage victory.
• If your #1 falls, as happened to Tour favorite Alexandre Vinokourov today, drop back with all but your 2nd best rider to drag your man back to the peloton. Vino's teammates raced the equivalent of a team time trial to drag him back up to the peloton today.
• Risk your career to accomplish the goals of the team.
• After you've used up everything and peeled off to let your teammates continue on down the road, you've got to drag yourself to the finish line within range of the peloton to avoid disqualification so you can go kill yourself for your team tomorrow.

So take a moment and tip your cap today to the number 9 riders. And remember: cycling is a team sport.

Adu as prima dona

Here is a troubling post-Brazil quote from Freddy Adu:

I just wanted the ball from Sal. I told him, 'just give me the ball.' I already knew what I was going to do before I got the ball. He was saying, 'You've got two guys on you.' I go, 'No, Sal, just throw me the ball.' He was smart enough to give me the ball at my feet. Usually they throw the ball at my head or my chest and I just get hit from behind. I was able to control it. I already knew what I was going to do and it worked great.

Wow. "Usually 'they' throw the ball at my head or my chest"? 'They'? Your teammates?

I don't know. He's 18. He might lack media polish. But that is the sort of stuff that I do not like to hear.

All-Timers

For some reason, I don't talk a lot of baseball in The Sports Sauna. At least, I don't talk baseball except to release my latest brain fart on PED's. (I'm using PED's as an acronym for Performance Enhancing Drugs. "Stuff" never really caught on.) But tonight is the All-Star Game, and nothing makes me feel like I'm ten years old like racing to the TV in time to see all the All-Star's announced. So let's talk baseball.

Last night I watched the Home Run derby with my dad and my brother. To add to the enjoyment, we had a small wager on the derby and each picked two guys. My dad had first pick. Now heading into the thing, if you had first pick, who would you take? Be honest... Everyone liked Prince, which was a decent pick, but I was thinking defending champ Howard or Pujols. I don't like the first timers, even though Howard won it last year. They tend to be too jumpy. My dad takes Vlady! Then my brother took Prince and I wound up with my top two choices. Of course, you know what happened. I didn't see that coming, but I shouldn't have underestimated Vlady. He's an All-Timer.

I started thinking about how cool it was to watch Pujols and Vlady knock balls to kingdom come. Pujols, when it's all said and done, might be the best hitter of my lifetime. And Vlady is unlike anyone who has ever played the game. They're both special. They're All-Timers.

So let's sort out the All-Star rosters into tiers, with minimal comments. That way, when Griffey steps to the plate tonight for perhaps the last time in an All-Star game, we'll all appreciate it a little more, as we should.

All-Timers
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Vlad Guerrero
Manny Ramirez
Ichiro Suzuki
Albert Pujols
Barry Bonds
Ken Griffey Jr.

Hall of Famers
Ivan Rodriguez
Trevor Hoffman
John Smoltz
(or en route)
Chase Utley
Roy Oswalt
Billy Wagner
Johan Santana

Remember Him? He was so...
David Ortiz (clutch)
Torii Hunter (amazing in CF)
Magglio Ordonez (good before he got hurt)
K-Rod (nasty)
Alfonso Soriano (talented)
Brandon Webb (sinkerballin')

Young and Rising (born in the 80s)
Tier 1
Carl Crawford
Grady Sizemore
Justin Morneau
Jose Reyes
Miguel Cabrera
David Wright

Tier 2
Alex Rios
Josh Beckett
Dan Haren
Jon Paplebon
CC Sabathia
Justin Verlander
Russ Martin
Brian McCann
Prince Fielder
Matt Holliday
Cole Hamels
Jake Peavy
Chris Young

If he was on your team, you'd love him
Jorge Posada
Michael Young
Victor Martinez
Carlos Beltran

Solid
Brian Roberts
John Lackey
Derrick Lee
Carlos Lee
Brad Penny
Ben Sheets
JJ Putz

He made the All-Star team??
Placido Polanco
Carlos Guillen
Mike Lowell
Bobby Jenks
Gil Meche
Hideki Okajima
Dmitri Young
Orlando Hudson
JJ Hardy
Freddy Sanchez
Aaron Rowand
Francisco Cordero
Brian Fuentes
Takashi Saito
Jose Valverde

"...the aerodynamic reality of the peloton..."

That's Phil Liggett, the veteran Tour commentator explaining why yesterday's breakaway didn't succeed. Fantastic! Phil's the best.

As usual, I'm watching today's stage on TiVo. (Don't tell me what happens!) They just previewed the last 1 km, and it looks like a deathtrap. Two quick 90 degree turns over horrendous cobblestones that could be icy slick if wet.

Today they interviewed Fred Rodriguez, a lesser American cyclist who crashed out of the Tour last year and was in the big crash yesterday. He was blaming the Tour organizers for not looking out for the safety of the riders. Yesterday's crash, as Phil Liggett pointed out, was caused by a rider's error, not by a bad road. But if the road was wider, it wouldn't have caught so many riders and plugged up the entire peloton.

Phil just mentioned that today, on the tour's longest stage, the average speed is significantly lower than they've seen on the tour in recent years. I actually believe the massive crackdown on doping heading into the Tour might have worked. If someone said this was the cleanest Tour in 20 years, I'd believe it. The message that the Tour has sent to riders: you get caught doping in this Tour, expect no mercy whatsoever.

Allow me to put on my "reckless blogger making unfounded accusations" hat on for a moment. What if the Tour is making these finishes a little more dangerous to grab the attention back of casual fans turned off by all the doping? It will be interesting to see if there are more crashes this year. Of course, even that proves nothing.

I want to repeat that: USA 2-1 Brazil

You beat Brazil in soccer, at any level, that's a huge statement. I'm thrilled that ESPN is covering the U-20s and showing a fair amount of highlights on SportsCenter. That's where I caught Adu's goals. My dad, a casual USA soccer fan, was talking about his spin-move goal for a couple days. And we managed to catch the stoppage team of the Brazil game. INTENSE. Go USA. My brother and I are lightly tossing around the idea of driving up to Toronto on Wednesday for the game, if there is any chance of getting tickets.

Anyway, the reason I signed on to post was to mention how tough cyclists are. I was just watching Stage 1 of Le Tour (Robbie McEwen is unbelievable) and caught a three man crash at the back of the peloton. Most of us have fallen off our bike. But the next time you're in a car going 25 to 35 MPH, think about what it'd feel like to jump out of the car onto pavement. Then think if you jumped out tangled up in a bicycle. Then imagine a couple other bikes and humans falling on top of you. Maybe you land on a curb or a metal crowd barrier. Sucks right? Well guess what. You still have to get right up onto your bike, catch up to the peloton and ride another 100 miles. Not to mention the fact that sitting on a bicycle for several hours is rather uncomfortable, though I think these pros get used to it.

U-20s: Freddy Adu Magic

Holy cow. I just finished watching 15 minutes of YouTube highlights from the U-20 World Championships.

Simply stunning.

USA 2 - 1 Brazil (esp. Adu @ 6:54 mark, and goalie Seitz throughout)
USA 6 - 1 Poland (esp. Adu @ 1:37 mark)

Enjoy.

Eddie Johnson

OK. Copa America is over. We stunk. Like, crazy bad. I didn't see any of the games, but I've just finished reading some recaps.

Here are two of my favorites, both relating directly to the Columbia match:

Here's an idea. What if someone took Eddie Johnson, blindfolded him, turned him around about 50 times, then removed the blindfold and lie to him about which goal to attack. Then he might actually run at goal. Worth a try, no?
- Ives Garlacep

So much for using this game as confidence builder; it caps a miserable tournament for Johnson. The next time the team convenes, if Bradley has his first-choice forwards available, it's difficult to see how Johnson will get a game.
- Jeff Carlisle

Here's hoping we've seen the last of him for a few years. Geez.

Tour de France starting

I don't know about you (though I can probably guess), but I'm excited about the Tour de France starting. The vacuum at the top has left a wide open tour this year, especially where the yellow jersey is concerned.

Everyone's old favorite climber, Michael Rasumussen, is back. If he improved his sprinting a bit he could challenge for yellow. But I'll just be excited if he wins a mountain stage or two.

Team Discovery is loaded again, and you might recognize some names. Without having read anything, I'm not sure who their number 1 is. Maybe George Hincapie. But Yaroslav Popovych should be entering the prime of his career.

The one lock: Robbie McEwen for the Green Jersey for the sprint title. He's the Tiger Woods of sprinters, at least the past couple of years. He can just take it to another level and his timing is immaculate.

They're riding around my stomping grounds for the Prologue tomorrow in London. I'll be watching.

2203.4 miles to go...That's Seattle to Dallas.