It seems as though every year, the TdF organisers have to find a more ridiculous way to bus in the teams for the big Depart. This year, because of the commemoration of 100 years since the Somme, they chose a WW1 theme, with teams forced to perch precariously in rickety old vintage vehicles, each one with a group of randomly-decorated walkers in front of it, although none of them was waving a red flag.
(Note for young people: when cars were first invented they were very slow, and drivers were forced to have a bloke with a red flag walk in front of them to warn pedestrians of the oncoming mechanical monster. How things have changed.)
This meant that the tv coverage was, well, spotty to say the least: the host broadcaster did their best to show us each team arriving on stage and being introduced, but they were often hopscotched by the lovely Lowra (well, that's how we pronounce it) interviewing random riders, so we frequently missed a bit: and they would intercut each presentation with shots of them trundling up towards the stage area, even though they were clearly already on the stage, which gave the whole thing a weird time-warp effect. Or maybe that was the intention?
Direct Energie (did I say Bora Aragon originally? Oops!) started the presentation by putting up two strong contenders for Worst Hairdo:
Brian Coquard looks as though he was aiming for the Kittel rootlift but instead did a Woody Woodpecker - or do I mean Roadrunner? Tweetie Pie? I'm sure there was a yellow bird-like cartoon once with a sticky-up quasi-quiff, and it looked just like this.
Sylvan Chavanel, on the other hand - what on earth's going on there? It looks like a wig! Possibly, a wig that's been put on back to front!!
Bora Aragon (well, that's how everyone says it) trundled up in their camo truck (nearly didn't see them arrive, ha! ha!) taking selfies all the way.
And yes, Michelle, they did indeed submit their usual entry for the competition: Shane Archbold and his mullet, yay!
We can only assume that he likes to have long flowing hair over his neck, but can't bear the heat of having all that mop under his helmet, so he cuts the top short and leaves the back long. It's sort of like the opposite of a pudding-bowl haircut: instead of cutting off everything outside the pudding-bowl, he cuts off everything inside it.
At least he doesn't tie in back in a "bad ponytail", so things could be worse!
Lotto Jumbo were led out by Wilco Kendermann, and luckily no-one made any jokes about the British wartime slang. Pity they don't have a rider called Roger, really. They could line him up in front of Wilco, followed by Oveur and possibly someone called Out and there you have it.
Next up were Cannondale, now rebranded as Cannondale-Drapac, phew, thank
the lord for extra sponsors: their team leader is of course Schleckland
Pet Pierre Rolland, but I had a bit of a shock when they went up on the
podium, as I realised that I had never actually seen his face before.
Well, I mean, I've only ever seen him with his helmet and sunglasses on, and apparently this is what he looks like without them (slightly scary).
Oh well, at least LLB can't accuse me of picking him as a pet because he is "cute", eh?
Next up were Trek, and you have to feel a bit sorry for whoever their team leader is, because everyone wanted to talk to Fabs.
He was as delightfully incoherent as usual, charming to the last, and
playing down his retirement in favour of paying respect to le Tour.
We don't, of course, include Fabs in the Worst Hairdo competition, because he doesn't "do" his hair, it just naturally goes like that.
How Sagan must grind his teeth in envy....
IAM took the stage, and for some unfathomable reason they decided to embarrass the youngest member of the peloton, someone who appeared to be called Sandra Enger by forcing/letting him do some dance moves on the stage: it didn't quite work, mostly as the live band were producing light jazz. Still, if your team is about to fold and you are a complete unknown, there are worse things to do than draw attention to yourself by dancing at the Grand Depart. He will forever now be "oh, you're the one who did that weird dance thing at le Tour, aren't you?", which is better than sinking without trace.
Lampre got a bit of a raw deal, just a quick chat with Rui Costa then another with the apparently 12 year old Louis Minkies, before they were hustled off the stage in favour of Dimension Data and Cav.
Cav, true to form, managed to look charming (with his Bambi eyelashes and thank-god-he-had-them-straightened perfect teeth) and belligerent (with the top-heavy wartime haircut with sides shaved shorter than his stubble) at the same time, but proved his enduring value to sponsors by managing to mention the sponsor name, the charity name, and what the charity does, ie bicycles for children in Africa, all in the space of a brief interview.
He repeated this feat when Lowra interviewed him shortly afterwards too: he may be a bit of a rough diamond, and a challenge to many interviewers, by my goodness, he is good value. My favourite quote still has to be that one where the rather dim interviewer - who had clearly never seen him race - asked a really dumb question about "do you always try to win, in a sprint finish?" to which Cav replied, with a dirty look, "Of course I always try to win, it's not a f**king hobby, you know."
Fortuneo, one of the shitsmall teams, appear to have Frankie riding for them:
The caption said it was Brice Feillu, but don't you think it looks a little like Frankie?
And, they appear to have made a bit of a gaffe with their kit design, as they appear to be wearing fishnet stockings:
I was expecting them to break into the can-can at any moment.
Luckily, they didn't, they just rode calmly off the stage, making way for O'Rica and another squeaky speaker, Simon Gerrans, followed by the non-team of Cofidis who, without Boohoohanni *snorts through nose* don't have a snowball's chance of doing anything in this Tour. I suspect that we will either not see them for the entire Tour, or - if they have any sense - they will be in every single break from the moment the racing starts.
Next up *scary chord* the Dark Lords, who are taking the principle of "uncluttered kit" to an extreme, as they now appear to have no sponsors at all apart from the breakfast cereal, Special K.
Another red kit appeared, this time Lotto Soudal, and the terminal embarassment of Gummy Bear Greipel in his German national jersey, which prompted whistles and cat-calls from the audience, who have spent the last two hours or more being whipped into a pro-French frenzy by the WW1 memorabilia and the heavily biaised French presenter. Oh dear. Luckily, he was not actually torn limb from limb and hung up on the town clock along with the dummy and the parachute, but it was a close thing.
Ettixx-Quickstep bounded on the stage to defuse the situation: it was slightly unfortunate that their team leader, Marcel Kittel, is also German, and he does rather embody the blond-hair blue-eyes looks-like-a-Greek God sort of German ideal. However, he exuded charm, plus he has that wonderful root lift, so the host let him live, and elbowed him out of the way to have a word with rising star Julien Alaphillipe, thus cunningly bypassing the other German star of the team, Tony Martin, and another possible GC contender, Dan Martin who, along with his teeth, was completely ignored.
Then there was an unexplained musical interlude - presumably one of the vintage trucks had broken down and they were trying to wrestle a museum-quality WW1 stocking off of one of the period-costumed walkers in order to fix it - before Ass-t'na made it to the stage.
Ass-t'na, the pyjama boys, were lead on stage by Fabio "Eddy the Mad
Flatmate" Aru, leading contender for Ugliest Smile in the Peloton.
Nibali stood next to him, barely able to look at him, and totally unable
to smile. The hyperthyroid over-enthusiastic host did his best, he had a
chat with Aru then pushed him over to make a space so he could talk to
Nibbles, which he did in English, which was probably a subtle dig at Aru
not being able to do so.
This almost made Nibbles
smile... and he was quite jovial in his reply, right up to the moment
when he couldn't think of the word, and his face darkened like thunder
as he lost his thread. He turned to the lovely Jakob, and quite clearly
hissed to him in Italian "what's the word for xxx?" and Jakob, that well
known English/French/Italian/everything-speaking Dane, slipped him the
next phrase. Phew, storm averted.
Our commentators,
Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly, were happily burbling on about the rivalry
between Aru and Nibbles, and the tension thereof, which was a very
funny counterpoint to the thundery faces on the podium.
Ahh Djhee Duurs Air appear to have sent along a squad of 12-year olds - is it me, or are cyclists getting younger? - led by Romain Bardet who is very nearly a Schleckland pet, until he turns sideways to reveal a racing keel of a nose.
Giant Alpecin appear in their Tour kit, which is now white with black stripes. They have sent a really strong team, with Tom "Desperate Dan" Domoulin towering and glowering, Warren "Onion" Barghee looking surprisingly cute, Wolfman Ten Damme and various others. Unfortunately, their kit designer must be working with Fortuneo, and their stockings-and-suspenders were even more blatant:
I'm afraid this is definitely a can-can moment. Lookit!
Their interviews included John "Bad Boy" Degenkolb, looking less like a WW2 spiv than usual, thank heavens: and I am still undecided as to whether I like him or not. You might remember that he was promoted to Pet status, then demoted: now, after that dreadful accident, he's worked so hard to get fit, that I feel he ought to be promoted again. We shall observe his behaviour, perhaps, before deciding.
Next
up were BMC and of course they are also having team leader issues, but
in their case Richie Porte bounced up on the stage and squeaked happily
about the joys of co-leadership: the mean-minded host, probably still
sweating from the narrow escape of fisticuffs from the pyjama boys,
actually asked him about the rivalry between him and Teej -
incidentally, anyone know what Mr Van Garderen's first name is?
Presumably he is Mr T Van Garderen, and TJ is "T Junior"? I remember
watching "Rosanne" for years, and accepting that yanks give their kids
weird names, because the little boy was apparently called Deej. It must
have been several seasons before I realised that it was a contraction of
Dee Jay, which in turn was short for Dan Junior. I know, I know: we
didn't have the internet in those days, and I never saw it written down
anywhere...
Anyway, good old Ritchie just gave one of those megawatt grins while burbling happily about what fun it was going to be.
FDJ have sent a chirpy team, lead by Tibbles, who looks like a bit of a ruffian but is somehow irresistible at the same time. They were all clearly thrilled to be there, which made a bit of a change from the other teams, many of whom were looking positiviely miserable. Maybe it was the weather.
Then we had an extended interlude for Stinkoff: blimey, what a performance. Sagan appeared with a wild mass of hair, and his usual "I'm a mass murderer and somewhat ashamed of it" hangdog expression, complete with whiney nasal voice, and we learned that he is equally nasal in Italian. For some unknown reason, the host gave him the microphone and told him to introduce his team, which started with him almost bypassing team leader Contador altogether, pretending he didn't know the names of the others - at least, we hope he was pretending - and then introducing Tossato as "Tosser". He clearly doesn't know that in English, to call someone a "tosser" is a significant insult. The only funny bit was Sagan's use of the word "...nice..." after describing a team-mate's achievements.
The host finally managed to grab the microphone back, and scolded Sagan for not doing a proper build-up for his introductions, saying "this is how you should have done it.." then giving Contador a huge, massive, introduction, probably because Conti was standing there with his nose so far out of joint that the others might not have been able to get past him to leave the stage.
Unfortunately, the way the audio had been set up meant that for us tv viewers, we heard a hugely loud build-up from the host, an elongated "COOONNNNNTTAAAADOOOOOOOOOR!!!!" and then a mere murmur of "... yay...." from the crowd. Presumably, you had to be there.
Next up were Movistar, the Wiggly Worms, and they appeared to have Harry Potter on their team:
Let's hope he can work some magic, huh?
Presumably his youthful energy is there to counterbalance the 82-year-old Quintana, who seems to be going very strongly for such an old man.
Finally, last team up, Team Sky hit the stage, and Chris Froome bravely responds to the host in French, thus endearing himself to the gathered crowds.
Not so much G, bless him, who is so laid back that he hasn't even bothered to prepare his answers: he can't remember how long his own team has been going "Err, it's been like, err, wot, seven years now is it? Six? Seven? Wotever, not long..." and then he can't remember how many times his own team have won the Tour: "Well, 's like, four times, innit? Four? Free? Four?"
Hilarious!
Only three other items of interest: firstly, the lovely Lowra - who usually only does the Giro and la Vuelta - appears to be doing interviews for Eurosport at the Tour this year, which will be nice, as LLB and I can overdub her interviews with our own versions, in which she is usually inviting riders to meet her for paella, and they are refusing her with various degrees of politeness. For the first time, she turns to face the camera. My god! She's pretty! I've only ever seen her profile before, so it's quite a shock to find out that she does actually have two eyes.
(Oh, I'm talking about Laura
Meseguer, of course)
Secondly, the presentation ended with liddle kiddies on stage holding up the flags of the nations; which was lovely, but would have been a bit classier if they had ironed the flags, as they were clearly just taken out of a box ten minutes beforehand.
And finally, what was going on with the graphics on the backdrop?
Is it me, or are those money boxes?
Is this the latest way to raise sponsorship or funding - make cyclist-shaped money boxes and go along the crowd asking for small change?
Actually, they might have something there...!
Well, there you have it, my round up of the presentation - did I miss anyone out?
