Brilliant, I don't think so.Originally Posted by Red Peasant
This tour was a tour with men with limits (Which is good as in the former tours drugs made men do extreme things). No one, apart from Sastre tried something. Landis even gave his yellow jersey away just so he wouldn't have to defend it ( I understand this on a tactical level, but it is not something a great champion would do). He even repeatedly said that he wouldn't attack (!!!) because he knew his limits and so he didn't attack. Hoorah for the champion that did it by following and nothing more.
True Landis had one amazing trick up his sleeve. Here in Belgium and probably in France too we call it merckxian. For that achievement he deserves to be in the first place as no other contender (I don't count Rasmussen, de la Fuente and others as they weren't doing it to win the tour) could do something simular but he only did it after he was given no other choice. I don't want to minimise Landis' achievement but if T-mobile and CSC would've chased him sooner, the time difference wouldn't have been as big as it was now and Klöden or Sastre could've won.
All in all Landis deserved the first place but only because no one else, or no other team, was capable of doing a tour winning performance.
Brilliant performance by Landis no, but in the land of the blind rules king one-eye (Dutch expression).
It makes me wonder what would've happend if Vinokourov would've started.
Bookmarks