The peloton follow Triple P's route to the station
Triple P, unexpectedly enjoyed the Olympics ceremony last night and although it was a little too hip and multicultural for his taste we did think it was a striking looking production.
Today the Olympics came right past our door (well about a 100 yards from our door) with the men's road race coming through the village. It was strange to watch it on TV going through all the places we know and then hopping out the house for ten minutes to watch it go by before racing back to catch the finish. No doubt the local roads, which have been inundated with road cyclists since the route was announced will be even worse from now on.
Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins (left) and Mark Cavendish (right)
Unfortunately the much vaunted UK team were victims of their own success in the Tour de France with no-one helping to catch the breakaway group. The fact is that if Mark Cavendish had only taken his early stage on the Tour then people might have thought that he had lost some top end speed and someone like the Germans might have worked a bit harder in the chasing group. However, his two later dominant wins in the Tour showed that he was still the fastest sprinter in the world so nobody from another team was going to help towards pulling the breakaway back to enable a bunch sprint. They would rather the UK lost than they themselves won, as Cavendish rightly suggested.
Vinokourov (centre) whizzes along the A244
Given there were some good riders in the breakaway it was a shame it was won by convicted blood doper Vinokourov whose Astana team has always been dodgy; as, indeed, has the whole Kazakh cycling federation who let Vinokourov back after his ban tremendously early so he could compete in the Beijing Olympics.
The biggest problem will be that Bradley Wiggins buried himself for Cavendish and only has a day to recover for the time trial.
The BBC coverage of the race was appalling and Tour de France commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin were much missed. Thank goodness for Chris Boardman as Hugh Porter constantly misidentified riders and, indeed, countries. He is seventy two now, only four years older than Liggett, but has completely lost his touch. Time to find someone else BBC (hint his name begins with "L"). The lack of time separation information was also unforgivable. The French can manage real time information regarding the gaps between groups why can't the BBC? The BBC didn't have enough cameras out on the route either.
Triple P has a horrible feeling that this will just be the start of a series of disasters for our top stars in the next two weeks!
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