Andy goes Swimming

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The address is schleckland.wordpress.com
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Drat! I read this news report in Velonation this morning, confirming that Andy's cracked pelvic bone is not healing up as fast as everyone would like it to, such that he can't ride his bike properly yet.

Instead he's doing as much other exercise as he can, and in particular he's doing a lot of swimming.

So why "Drat!"?

Because about a week ago, I thought it would be funny to write a Schpleculation post about Andy going swimming, and Jakob fixing up a bike underwater, bolted to the side of the pool, so that Andy could exercise his leggies without having to put weight on his backside. The underwater bike would have paddles on the spokes, to provide resistance, and the joke was going to be that Jakob set it too low in the water, so Andy had to breathe through a snorkel while using it.

Or possibly a modified aero helmet.

But there's not much point, now that the whole world knows that he's been "mainly swimming".

Ho hum. You would have heard it here first, if I'd found time to write about it when I thought of it.

And of course Andy won't be coming to London for the Olympics any more, although there's no reason why he can't come here as a supporter, surely? Come on Andy, you can stand with LLB and I: if you ask nicely, I'll let you wave my big Leopard flag, for old times' sake.

So, other cycling news? Well, my Main Team, Team Sky, are having a fantastic Tour. We're all impressed by Frome, and I'm well impressed with Cavendish: I think a lot of people were wondering how he would cope without his HTC train, and whether there would be friction in Sky, or a split in the team between riding for Cav and riding for Wiggins. However, it's worked out perfectly, as far as I can see, and they are still holding the maillot jaune, which is terrific news for British cycling.

The Shack aren't doing too badly either: despite a somewhat spotty performance, they are clocking up some good finishes, and are getting UCI points. They are even holding the team classification again today - but not wearing the yellow helmets.

This is a bit of a sore point for me: the organisers, ASO, decided to revive the "yellow cap" routine, and instructed all the teams to bring along a set of yellow helmets. Sky were leading the team classification, and wore the yellow helmets, and got a lot of stick on the forums, as people (who clearly hadn't read the race manual) thought they were showing off, or bragging about how they were going to get the yellow jersey.

Finally, a different team took over the lead of the team classification, and they chose not to wear yellow lids! Apparently it wasn't compulsory: four out of the 22 teams chose not to bring yellow lids, and Shack were one of them. Which leaves all those ill-informed people thinking that Sky are a bunch of big-heads. Which I find a bit annoying.

As far as the Leopards are concerned, Fabian has gone home to await the birth of his second child, so good luck to Mrs Fab! (mental picture of Fab at her bedside, holding her hand: "Push!" he says, "Push!" . At that moment he is distracted by his reflection in one of the bed-side monitors. "Hmm, my hair looks nice...")

The Tour had possibly the slowest sprint finish ever today: the break of 5 riders were over 10 minutes ahead of the peloton, so they weren't exactly under pressure to get on with it. After a thrilling (?) game of cat-and-mouse with Jean-Christophe Peraud, the UK rider David Millar, riding for Garmin Sharp, came in first.

The spectators seemed a bit confused, to see the leaders of the stage coming in at a gentle Sunday-afternoon pace instead of hammering for the line.

It's a particularly sweet win for David Millar, who is one of my "pets", by the way, as he is a Repentant Doper: back in 2004 he admitted to doping, took his punishment, and has been clean ever since - and not only clean, he is now an outspoken anti-doper. He admits that he was young and foolish, and not brave enough to say "no". I watched a wonderful interview on British tv a couple of years ago, the interviewer was harsh and unforgiving, and David Millar was just about in tears, but he admitted his mistakes with his head held high, and more or less said "don't do it, kids" to all the young riders coming into the sport.

This is his first win since then, so, as I say, particularly sweet.

As has been pointed out, four stage wins for four different UK riders, all of whom are in the Olympic team. *waves Union Jack flag in a sudden excess of national pride*

It wasn't a bad day for the Shack, either: they had 6 riders in the main peloton, all coming in with the same time, and yes, Frankie was safely there. He's still sitting 12th in the GC, which isn't bad, plus he's 8 minutes up on Maxime Monfort who, just a day or two ago, was being referred to as a team leader by the unlovely Mr Bruyneel. You show him, Frankie!