Blood, Sweat and Urine: ITT

Well, that was a shocker!

Blood: Tony Martin, who deserves some sort of international cycling award, possibly a permanent Combativity jersey - streaked in red would be appropriate - finished the ITT with what turned out to be the winning time, and as he was sat on the ground recovering, you could see the blood seeping through his skinsuit.

Eeeuw!

Sweat: oh, they all did that. Pierre Rolland in polka dots deserves a special mention for struggling valiantly round the course, weighed down by all the red dots on his jersey, socks, handlebar tape etc. He did a fairly bad time, but then by definition the polka-dot jersey is for climbers, not for time trial specialists. Andy, as we know, sweated his way round, and although he came in 123rd, out of 182, at least he rode steadily, didn't fall off, and finished. Yay, Andy!

And Urine? Mark Cavendish was booed all the way, apparently - we didn't see this, as our coverage started later in the day - and had urine thrown over him. Lovely.  I don't quite understand what any true cycling fan would think to gain by doing this. Like the tacks-on-the-ground episode, you really can't be a cycling fan if you do things that spoil the sport. In fact, anyone who does such things should go back to football.

Andy did alright in the end: he is still in the top 20, he's sitting at 17th, and is just 8mins 32secs down, which is not bad after what detractors insist on calling a poor TT performance. Personally I think it wasn't that bad: he's done better - in previous Tours, he and Frankie have both been in the top 20 for the ITT, and I don't really see how anyone can call that a poor performance - but he is still coming back from this serious injury.

As discussed on Twitter yesterday afternoon,  Andy's conformation is against him, he will never be a top-rank TTist, no matter how often he practises. Fabian can not only touch his toes, he can get his hands flat on the ground. Frankie and Andy cannot quite touch their toes. They have gone as far as "practising stretching" can take them, their bodies just can't make that extra stretch. So they will never achieve the perfect TT position.

I get quite impatient when people outside the sport say "Oh, he really must get out there and practise" as though that's all it took. After how many years in the same team as Fabian, I kinda think they've already had as much coaching and tips and hints as they can make use of, don't you?

Personally, I can't do the splits, and no matter how much I practised, I never could, and never will. I'm just not built that way. Same with horse riding: I could never achieve the perfect "seat" as they call it, because I have a sway back and I cannot get my spine straight and upright, no matter how hard I try. When I lie flat on the ground on my back, I can still get a hand underneath the arch of my back. It's the way I'm built, and there's nothing I can do about it. In the same way (in case you wondered how we had moved from Andy Schleck to my back) Andy and Frankie cannot fold themselves flat in the way that a TT specialist can.

So give them a break!

*waves fists in rage at commentators and people on forums*

They are climbers, and GC specialists, which means they have extraordinary stamina to not just last out three weeks, but to be strongest at the end of the time, rather than shattered and just about making it through the day. 

So now what? Andy says that he's looking for a stage win, so fingers crossed everyone!