Stage 8 of
the Tour and it was a Saturday night in Australia. I finally got to see a stage
including the pre-match entertainment as opposed to rushing in during the week
only to see Matthew Keenan get caught by the Ps.
Part of the pre-match
entertainment for the night on SBS was Monty Python’s Best Bits. I can’t think
of a more appropriate segue into the Tour.
Off to the
kitchen and no visit to Brittany would be complete without crêpes so Gabs
treated the riders to Brittany crêpes with strawberries. The recipe
calls for double cream in a strawberries and cream reference to Wimbledon going
on across the Channel. I saw what you did there Gabs!
There’s 2
teaspoons or about 10g of butter so the buerremetric counter edges up to 120g.
Phil and Paul
gave us a rare up close and personal look at the commentary caravan. I see
they’re still using the 486s held together with duct tape. I know budgets are
tight at SBS but come on, lap tops and tablets are pretty cheap these days.
The
commentary caravan looked like it had a bit of a tidy up and noticed the
cassoulet bowls had been well hidden.
Team Katusha
Rockets started the day one man down after Luca Paolini tested positive for
cocaine. A very cheeky Troll DJ couldn’t help him/herself and had to play
‘White Lines’ by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mell. Anymore positive tests for
illicit substances Troll DJ will need to pull out the Del-Lords ‘When the DrugsKick In.'
Early on in
the race breakaways Bartosz Huzarski, Sylvain Chavanel, Romain
Sicard (this time on Oooropcar TV duty) and Pierre-Luc Périchon made their
escape. The hunt was on and 17 riders went on the chase after the intermediate sprint.
They were caught at 69 km to go when Huzarski escaped again with Lars Bak and
Michal Golas.
Huzarski
eventually surrendered and the last two breakies Bak and Golas were swallowed
up by the hungry pack at 8 km to go.
The moment the breakies realise they've been caught
I always wonder about the motivation of
a breakaway - dare to
dream or TV time for the team sponsor? Probably a bit of both really.
The field art
award of the day went to the hay bale bike construction with moving horsie
wheels. Nice nod to the racing industry even though PMU isn’t sponsoring the
green jersey anymore.
Just like with
the Mur de Huy Paul was having trouble with the pronunciation of Mûr-de-Bretagne,
the final climb to the finish. He settled on ‘Manure-de-Britannia.’ I’m also
hoping Phil pulls himself up the next time he calls Brittany ‘Britannia’ with a
“Oops!...I did it again.”
It wasn’t
just pronunciation that caused problems. Phil spotted Tony Greipel in the pack.
OK, fair enough Martin and Greipel are German. The Jensie got tangled up in a
Jensieism of his own and called Dan Martin ‘Dean Martin.’
I must
confess I do have difficulties with riders who share the same first name but
also have a first name as a surname with an ‘s’ on the end. Yes, I’m looking at
you Roger Matthews and Matthew Michaels.
No such
problems with the Yates twins Simon and Adam. They look the same, ride on the
same team, the first names are interchangeable really.
Down at the
business end of the day R2D2 C3PO La Mondiale’s Alexis Vuillermoz
made his intentions known on the climb of the Mûr-de-Bretagne, but Chris Froome wasn’t having any of
that leaving Nibs in his wake. Dean Martin left his attack a little too late and
the former mountain biker Vuillermoz rode away to take his first Tour victory
and a win for France.
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