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The Queen of Clubs @ McSweeney’s

Over at the McSweeney’s column Notes from a Caddishack, I wish that Mel had finished his story. It was pretty interesting.

2010 Tour de France: Stage 20 Longjumeau to Paris

Well, this year’s Tour de France is about to be wrapped up. Contador will undoubtedly win this year’s Tour and Schleck will be 2nd. The only thing left to decide is who among the sprinters will win this year’s stage in Paris, and who will win the yellow jersey.

Team Radioshack had some spiffy new black jerseys and uniforms. The race officials didn’t like this and it was against the rules. They’ve been told to put on their team colors. The race officials stop the race and let the Radioshack team change into proper uniforms.

A few different breakaways are tried. At 12.6km, there is a group of 11 riders away. They are all caught at 6.1km. Cavendish wins the stage and beats Hushovd and Petacchi, however, Petacchi finishes 2nd and wins the green jersey. Astana is jubilant. They won the yellow jersey.

All in all, I have to say that it was a great Tour this year. The beginning week was spectacular, especially stage 3. Once we hit the Alps, it was also very interesting. Lastly, the Pyrenees showed who would end up on top. If Schleck hadn’t had some mechanical problems, he might have fared better, but ultimately, I still think that Contador would have won the Tour.

2010 Tour de France Stage 12: Bourg-de-Péage to Mende

There is a large breakaway in this stage. They are at 2:08 from the peloton, which included Hushovd to sweep up some points. The break includes Charteau, Hushovd, Hesjedal (a Canadian), and Vinokourov (doping fiend on Astana) as well as Radioshack’s Kloden. They are 18.

At 53km, Hushovd beats Bole for another intermediate sprint and takes on the virtual green jersey. In the sprint before, Bole, one of Petacchi’s teammates from Lampré, won and deprived Hushovd of 2pts in the sprinting comp.

At 50km, Kloden and Vinokourov pick up the pace and drop Hushovd as well as a rider from Cofidis. A few kilometers later, Vinokourov, Kloden, Hesjdal, and Kiryienka split up the breakaway and are 3:13 in front. Erts is trying to bridge the gap with another rider. At 44km, Hushovd is caught by the peloton. The gap is now 3:44. The gap between them and their pursuers is 35 seconds.

At 28km, the lead is down to 3:09. There are a few shots of Vinokourov’s bike, a Specialized Tarmac SL3 S-Works with Nokon Cabling, nice paint, and an FSA Plasma integrated stem/handlebar.

Within 20km, the lead is less than 2 minutes. News comes over the race radio saying that Tyler Farrar has abandoned the Tour de France due to medical reasons.

At 10km, the lead is down to 1:20. The lead is slowly coming down. If the peloton doesn’t accelerate, the lead pack will finish first. At 6km, it’s 56″. The remains of the breakaway are going to be swept up by the peloton. At 4.4km, it’s about 30 seconds. Hesjdal is dropped off. Petacchi is pacing the peloton. Kloden is dropped at 4.2 km.

John Gadret form AG3R at 3.6km starts a move. He’s a few seconds in front of the peloton. Kiryienka and Vinokourov are in front. At 3.3km, the peloton is back at 40 seconds. Evans move toward the front. Gadret is caught. Vinokourov tries to distance Kiryienka on the climb.

Kloden joins Kiryienka while Vinokourov is still in front. Rodriguez from Katousha makes a move at 2.2km. Contador also makes a move, followed by Schleck. Schleck can’t make it and Contador is dancing away with Rodriguez. Contador joins Vinokourov.

Contador and Rodriguez drop Vinokourov. Schleck is coming up behind. He’s lost 24″ but he makes it up to 10″ at the end. Contador sprints but lets Rodriguez win. Contador was sprinting for time over Andy Schleck but he looked very concerned with trying to win the stage. I don’t know what he was doing. To me, it looked like he was checking for Schleck behind them.

The GC almost stays the same in the top 10. Rodriguez comes in at 4:58 as 8th.

2010 Tour de France Stage 11: Sisteron to Bourg-lès-valence

Right at the beginning of the race, there is a break. At 127km, there is another breakaway attempt. For this stage, I’m watching it on EuroSport.

Pineau gets some points by going up the mountain climb 4th. At 120km, the lead is about 3 minutes. Two French riders from Française-des-jeux and Cofidis are part of the breakaway, with one rider from Footon Cervetto.

I didn’t like Eurosport’s coverage so I switched to ITV4. Paul Sherwen and Phil Ligett really do a great job. Robbie Hunter is out with a broken arm. Geslin, Auget, and Benitez are at 1:35 ahead of the peloton.

At 27.5km, the peloton is at 16″. With a few accelerating attacks, the lead pack drops the racer from Française-des-jeux. At 22km, the breakaway is caught. Auge and Benitez congratulate themselves. This leaves the sprinting teams ready to organize themselves for the bunch sprint.

At 15km, Saxo Bank is keeping a blistering pace to attack Contador, who’s Astana team is decimated out of the peloton. Most of the Spanish Astana riders have trouble. Cancellara is at the front time trialing his team leader Andy Schleck to the finish at 54 kph. At 8km, Chavanel makes a move followed by Radioshack’s Popovich. HTC has moved to the front as Saxo Bank has stepped off the gas. They are quickly caught a kilometer later. The peloton is at 60 kph.

At 3km, Team Lampré is at the front. Thor Hushovd is there. Team Sky is trying to get organized, but they only have 3 or 4 riders in the front. The speed is 62kph now. Cancellara is at the back of the peloton.

At 1 km to go, HTC gets Renshaw as the lead out man for Cavendish. He was head-butting Julian Dean from Garmin Transitions away to give enough space to Cavendish. Cavendish accelerates and wins the stage. Petacchi gets 2nd so Hushovd loses the green jersey. When Renshaw dropped back, Dean gave him a few pushes.

Renshaw is disqualified from the Tour for head-butting Dean.

2010 Tour de France Stage 9: Morzine-Avoriaz to St-Jean-de-Maurienne

This stage has 66km of climbing. This is more than any other in the Tour de France. There are quite a few climbs, including two category 1 climbs and a category H climb, the C0l-de-la-Madeleine.

The GC part of Lance Armstrong’s race is over. He is placed 39th overall and he is no longer in contention for the win. He still wants to help his team. There are 12 men in today’s breakaway, including Pineau and Voigt. They lead the peloton by 6:16 at 55.2km from the end. The riders are hitting the Col-de-la-Madeleine. Pineau is dropped by the breakaway. Guiterez, Chateau, Sanchez are among the climbers who broke away. Tarrame is dropped off but Pineau is trying to join the breakaway again. He’s 37 seconds back.

2010 World Cup Finals Netherlands Vs Spain

It was a frustrating result since I supported the Netherlands, but in all fairness, the goal towards the end of the extra time (116′) was good. It was clean. Well, granted there was a foul right before it. The player was Elia, I think and he was clearly fouled by the Spaniards. I have to say that I didn’t like the British referee. He gave out quite a few yellow cards. Hetinga from the Dutch squad even received two in this match and had to be ejected from the game.

Two yellow cards = a red card, if you didn’t know. I could have done without ABC’s stupid halftime and end game comments. The commentary during the match was good. They were using Brits. Honestly, I should have gotten ITV’s or BBC’s coverage of the match instead.

Robben had two great chances to score, but it didn’t pan out, but ultimately, Spain was more aggressive and shot at the goal a lot more. It was only a matter of time before they scored a goal.

Did the right team win? Yes. It was a clean goal, no cheating or gray areas. Still, both squads could have done with a Forlan in their team. He was a revelation during the Uruguayan matches. The game was getting dirty though. This was one of the reasons why there were so many yellow cards, but the referee was really shit. He made a couple of late calls and wrong calls. I didn’t appreciate that.

Was this a great match? Nope. My favorite matches remain Netherlands Vs Brazil, Germany Vs England, Germany Vs Argentina. The later matches were different, a lot grittier, with a type of football that was less pretty to watch. Also, the yellow cards had caught up to some players, making them miss key matches.

2010 Tour de France Stage 8 Station des Rousses to Morzine-Avoriaz

This will be the first mountain finish for this year’s tour. This stage includes 2 category 1 climbs. There is one to finish off the stage, so this will be a great stage. No bunch sprint finish this time around and the sprinters will be eating dust.

In the beginning of the stage, a rider from Footon Cervetto crashed, which took down Jerome Pineau, the leader in the KOM competition. He came back up. Lance Armstrong crashed twice before hitting the mountains.

2010 World Cup 3rd Place Germany Vs Uruguay

What should have been an easy match for Germany almost ended in extra time, thanks to a beautiful attempt by Floran.

The games started quickly enough with a goal by Müller. Then, things calmed down for a while, but Uruguay scored, evening up the score. Uruguay was outplaying Germany and Cavani scored at 28′ leading into the second half.

Uruguay then scored their second goal. It was a beauty by Floran. Now, things were not looking good for a short time, but Jansen scored a few minutes later with a beautiful header. The game was back to being nervous for a while, until Khedira scored at 82′ sealing the victory for Germany.

It was almost lost thanks to Floran who’s incredible penalty kick hit the top of the goal post at the end of regulation time.

Suarez spent his time on the pitch being booed by the crowd. This was in reaction to his handball that stopped Ghana from scoring a victory goal . I think that it was well deserved because he is a cheat. For something like this, the goal should have been awarded to Ghana, Suarez should then have gotten a red card. I didn’t like how this played out because Gyan missed the penalty. Then the game went into a penalty shootout. It was only natural that Ghana lost that.

The booing from the crowd distracted Suarez from the top of his game. He regained some confidence later. Klose is sick so he was absent. If Müller had been in the semi-final, maybe the Germans would have won against Spain. Now, we’re two hours away from the final. I hope the Dutch beat Spain.

2010 Tour de France Stage 3 Wanze to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut

I don’t really know how to describe this awesome Tour de France stage. The Tour organizers thought that it would be really good to include a few cobblestones in this year’s Tour in this stage. In total, there were 7 sections over 18km of cobblestones. Needless to say this made for a very interesting race.

This by far is one of the most exciting stages of the Tour that I have ever seen. Everything starts as usual. Naturally, there’s a breakaway. Things started to get interesting when the peloton hit the cobblestone paths. They were brutal. Once again something very surprising happened. Frank Schleck took a spill and didn’t really get up. He’s since been pulled from the Tour. But this caused the peloton to split. The lead pack of riders were oblivious to this, but it had severe consequences for the of the racers.