LLB and I watched stage one in disbelief: grey-brown scorched earth, no greenery, no trees, thick grey air, no spectators to be seen, and our commentators bravely pushing the Party Line about "dust" in the air. Dust! Who are you kidding? Smog, mateys, smog pure and simple. No wonder nobody bothered to turn out to see it... even the finish line was, ooh, let me see, possibly three-deep with spectators, who appeared to have been roped together into as small an area as possible in order to make it appear to be bustling and popular.
Stage two was mercifully shortened due to the, er, air quality (ie SMOG) and although I accept that shortening a stage and changing the finish just 40 minutes before the race started could account for the lack of spectators, well, you would still expect to see good numbers at the near-the-end KOM point, wouldn't you?
Well, here is Philly Gilly crossing the line to enthusiastic cheering from both the spectators.
Pathetic, huh? I would be ashamed, if I were the organisers, to call this a finish. If they managed to get the red banners, the doping caravan, the podium truck, the photographers etc etc up there in time, you would have thought they could have bussed some of the spectators up there as well.
And as for stage 3, well, blow me down and call me Shirley, Tyler Over-Hyped Farrar only actually won the flipping thing! I seem to have spent the last five years criticising him for never winning, but always being talked about as though he had a chance.
Finally, stung by my comments, he managed to scrape a stage win, whoo hoo, pity it had to be the non-event that is the Tour of Beijing but at least the team will be happier with him.. oh, too late, they've already given him the shove and he's off to MTN Qhubeka (not Quebeca, as I keep writing it) for next season. Oh well, at least MTN-Quebec *laughs* will be happy with him.
What was that? Why do I dislike him so much? I think it dates back to when I first started following cycling properly, he was on every advert break, with his fat smug face pushing the Transitions specs. I couldn't understand why he had the advert deal - no doubt worth a huge amount of money - while he never won anything.
Oh no, perhaps we'll see a new series of ads featuring his chin-enhanced face... let's hope not, eh?
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