Hero and Villain of the year
Comments
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I'll stay well away from the politics, as this is supposed to be a sport.
Heroes:
Ballan: Had a scorching Classics run, riding with guts and being ready to lose to win. He then went on to work selflessly for Bennati.
Cancellara: His days in yellow would have been nothing more than the result of a great prologue if it were not for that gutsy win in Compiegne. That win made the yellow run a great inspiration and showed the man has balls.
Andy Schleck: Rode a brilliant Giro, always in the right place at the right time and not at all afraid to work when the circumstances dictated it.
Contador: This may change if his links to OP materialize, but seeing him ride up and down the group and looking into the other riders' eyes to gauge them before taking off is just brilliant. That last day of Paris-Nice was pure class.
Karpets: Turned the heat on big time this year. Came up flat in the Tour, but that was quite a run-up.
Villains:
Mazzolenni: Placing well in the Giro, laying out your plans for the rest of the season, then suddenly deciding to retire when your name comes back up in an investigation is about as close to a confession as a hypocrit will get.
Vino: I don't really need to explain this, do I?
Kash: You just couldn't blame the lab like everyone else, could you?
Ricco: A general, all-around prick. He's overconfident, sulks at the back of the line then attacks, he's tactically illiterate... Plus he looks like a 12-year old choir boy and has "The Cobra" as a nickname. wtf?
Mayo: "Look! I can suddenly ride again! What? You want me to pee in the cup? Oops!"
All the guys that got caught: You dopes!0 -
getting caught means you're a dope. Maybe the word has different meanings on either side of the Atlantic, like "pissed" does. Over here, it means you're kind of slow and not too bright, usually following the ingestion of a tad too many psychotropic substances. To get caught by the existing system, you have to be exactly that.
All the other dopers can go f*ck themselves as far as I'm concerned, yet they don't fit into this definition of "dope". Gotta love semantics!0 -
Another hero: Mark Cavendish. He's young, fearless and already winning plenty. May he keep doing so.0
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Can I start with Villans as that is easier?
Winner - Michael Rasmussen
Honourable Mentions - Anyone with any connection to Team Astana and Discovery Channel... Phil Liggett/Paul Sherwen (listen to David Harmon to see how its done)...McQuaid (obviously)... Di Luca...Kascheshkins lawyer...Bjarne Riis (had to have his confession beaten out of him).
moving on to hero of the year,
Winner - Geraint Thomas
Honourable mentions - Not too many, but Eurosports coverage of the tour (when it started on time !!) was great... Cav... Tony Gibb... The fans who after a battering watching the Tour de Farce still went to the rideside to welcome the Tour of Britain (Chapeau).0 -
Don't really need a section on villains as we all know them!
Hero-
Barloworld- For wining stages in the tour and beating the biggest teams having been given a wildcard entry. (Geraint Thomas as well for finishing his first ever tour.)
Fabian Cancarella- Great tour stage wins
Andy Schleck- 2nd in Giro
All GB Track riders-
Specially Victoria Pendleton!"I hold it true, what'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost;
Than never to have loved at all."
Alfred Tennyson0 -
drenkrom wrote:I'll stay well away from the politics, as this is supposed to be a sport.
Heroes:
Ballan: Had a scorching Classics run, riding with guts and being ready to lose to win. He then went on to work selflessly for Bennati.
Cancellara: His days in yellow would have been nothing more than the result of a great prologue if it were not for that gutsy win in Compiegne. That win made the yellow run a great inspiration and showed the man has balls.
Andy Schleck: Rode a brilliant Giro, always in the right place at the right time and not at all afraid to work when the circumstances dictated it.
Contador: This may change if his links to OP materialize, but seeing him ride up and down the group and looking into the other riders' eyes to gauge them before taking off is just brilliant. That last day of Paris-Nice was pure class.
The last rider I saw do that in 96 was that lying B*stard Dane called RISS.
Up and down and away up the mountain.......Clever to join a German T eamOrganiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 19720 -
Heroes
Sinkewitz - quite brave I thought, telling it like it is, without blaming anyone else, and facing up to the consequences.
Geraint Thomas - head down got on with the job.
Andreas Kloden - either he is a selfless uber domestique, or he really is shy of leadership. Either way he did his duty to his leader and a fat lot of good it did him!
Fabian Cancellara - he is just so cool!
Vino - buttock hanging off stage 5, weeping wounds through to tears of despair stage 12 (to be continued - see villains)
Villains
Contador - when deliberating over whether a transfer to Astana would damage his reputation he conveniently forgot he was one of the reasons that Astana (Wurth) had to pull out of the 2006 TDF.
Biver & Stapleton - allowing riders to waste careers and reputations under their watch. UNFORGIVABLE
Gripper - getting the glory for snaring a few easy targets, without doing anything to create a culture that would not tolerate doping. How many were let off the hook because they ducked the radar?
ASO/UCI - stifled the sport with politics and ego.
Floyd Landis - et al.
Vino (cont.) - he wanted it too much.0 -
Anne Gripper a villain? Some people inhabit a very strange universe indeed...Le Blaireau (1)0
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Well she does look like one..
You are right of course, it was a bit harsh, but there again in my strange but simple universe, Gripper would have contacted the wounded and bleeding Vino before the TT and advised him that she had strong evidence that he was up to something and recommended he withdraw, from the race, or risk getting dissected with a blunt scalpel when the stage was over. He, seeing the error of his ways, withdraws injured and lives to fight again. The tour then looks a little less shabby, Vino's 'hard man' reputation takes a bashing, but he turns out a new man. Gripper can smile to herself, rather than run around with her shirt over her head shouting RESULT. And I can once again take my Astana jersey out of the closet
I'm just a big softy really.
Sorry can't help Kash, he's on his own.0
