French do well at Tour de France shock!

Amazing isn't it.

A week and a bit in, a French team in yellow and three stage wins by Frenchmen, that's riders born in France, who hold real French passports and everything.
Just imagine the odds you'd have got on that 10 days ago?

4 more years, 4 more years, 4 more years.

Is the chant as Uncle Pat is re-elected to the post of 'Man behind the desk' at the UCI.
“I think it’s healthy that there’s only one candidate as it shows that the other continents outside of Europe are satisfied with how the UCI is working, and that the most important continent, Europe, is also satisfied and doesn’t want division,” Says Uncle Pat.
Well that's one way of looking at it, there is, as always an alternative view. Lets say you're walking along the street and you see a man with a dog, the dog stops, squats down and deposits a giant steaming turn on the pavement. Do you rush up to the owner saying 'Here, mate, let me pick up that giant steaming turd .' or do you walk past shaking your head and thinking 'rather you than me'. IMHO that's pretty much the situation with world cycling, it's steaming a bit and no one will go near it except for the dog owner.

Oh and since when has having only one candidate been healthy?

Radio is cleaning up the nation. They say you'd better listen to the voice of reason, but they don't give you any choice cos they think that's it is treason.

Or so sang Mr Elvis Costello. And so said Mr Johan Bruyneel. Didn't the teams agree to the two no radio days a month or so back? So why wait until the Tour has actually started to get teams to sign a petition? Would it not have been possible to start a discussion back in June when the radioless days were initially announced and then by all means if there was a stalemate and teams / riders were still unhappy, then stage a protest?
That would have seen the sensible option, but this is cycling and the sensible option is often a foreign country. So Bruyneel runs around the night before the stage with a sheet of A4 getting team managers to sign on the dotted line, well that's good use of the time of one of the worlds most powerful managers.

But of course the event wasn't handled well by anybody, as usual cycling officialdom seems unable to start a coherent dialogue with anyone and planning and communication don't seem to enter their minds. Meanwhile there are knee jerk reactions and protests in response. This whole affair should have been in discussion from the start of the season, or last season or whenever, there should have been meetings and the case for and against radios should have been made and being cycling a compromise would have been reached. Instead though we have the riders getting an extra days recovery (I doubt they mind) and the sport looks like a fool in the eye's of the worlds press.

This is exactly the reason why having only one candidate for Uncle Pats job is a bad idea.

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