Um. Well, those of you not following THE WORLD’S BIGGEST AND BEST BIKE RACE will not be interested in this post. Go click on one of the side buttons, you’ll be better entertained. (If you clicked on the one labelled “True Magic“, there are some damsels who have a spot of distress over there – they’re far more funny than me, and you can really help!)
For those of you left, you may recall I was cheering for Cavendish to win green last year in the Tour de France. I changed my mind this year because it seemed he was too arrogant – he’s always been arrogant, but he was breaking boundaries with his ego this year. He is always quick to thank his team for putting him in the winning spot, but when he doesn’t win, he doesn’t think it’s his fault. He laughs contemptuously at other sprinters, and riled Thor Hushovd unnecessarily (though that did lead to Thor winning the green fair and square). This year, maybe it’s the bias of Versus trying to make things interesting, but they showed all his crashes and rude gestures and insults, which did affect my opinion of him.
So I started cheering for Tyler Farrar. He’s injured, and probably won’t win green at this point, but I’m still going to cheer for him getting stage victories.
But then Cav won today, in a spectacular way, and he was crying when he received his award. And, you know, that is telling. These wins are important to him, and not just for his ego. I don’t know why he thinks he needs to project the image of someone who’s snobbishly better than everyone else, but he’s young yet. And I was really excited to see him win - even if he crashed on purpose in Stage 1, and even if he gave up halfway through the Stage 4 sprint, I didn’t like to see him take so much international flak. I guess I’m still subconsciously cheering for Cav. …Manx Missile is just such a cool nickname. I think he is better inside than he wants to say – though why that would be is kind of a mystery to me.
I’d like to line him up with Petacchi and see who is actually faster… but that’s beside the point.
Or maybe I’m completely wrong and he’s still a jerk. You never know.
………Did you know that ‘missile’ is from the Latin word meaning ‘able to be sent’? That’s a pretty good literal meaning.
I’m still cheering Farrar! : P
