It was another long day of waiting several hours in the baking sun for a skinny man in padded shorts with smooth legs to cross the finish line, so obviously I enjoyed myself! And it helps when the finish line crew all recognize me and come over to say hi: the guys who paint the Škoda logo at the finish line, the man dressed up as a giant baguette, the cameraman for France 2…The baguette man in particular is always good to me. He usually gives me my own baguette (everyone else just gets a slice or two) and something special. Today it was this hat which I actually wore since it created a good amount of shade.
I will say that while everyone seems to be maintaining a high energy level after 2 weeks of the Tour, the mascots are quickly moving away from G rated behavior and jumping straight into PG-13 and occasionally beyond, which is pretty amusing to watch.
I had watched the stage unfold on a giant screen. The peloton had let a big breakaway go clear and the winner was going to be one of those 26 riders. It was exciting to watch the riders in the breakaway launch attacks, especially as 2 Frenchmen were in the lead at one point, much to the delight of the crowd, but in the end Movistar's Portuguese rider, Rui Costa, won by a 42 second advantage. After checking over his shoulder, he let out a deep breath and celebrated well before crossing the finish line all alone.
A sprint for second place ensued with AG2R's Christophe Riblon beating 3 others.
About 10 more riders crossed the finish line before Nick Roche's group. I couldn't make it out, but he was definitely saying something as he rode through the finish.
Johnny Hoogerland.
Manuel Quinziato.
The yellow jersey coming in.
Andy Talansky (right) led in a gruppetto that included Cadel Evans (center).
Sylvain Chavanel (right) and his teammate Michal Kwiatkowski (left).
It was packed but I managed to squeeze my way in to see Costa on the podium.
I stayed to see Froome in yellow (again) before I dashed off to the team buses.
I passed Greipel giving an interview.
Since the teams leave pretty much as soon as they can these days, I first checked out Garmin for the obligatory waving of the Canadian flag at a bus with darkened windows before moving on to Orica GreenEdge. A couple of the staff remembered me from Montpellier and we talked about what a great Tour the team is having. I said I was also having a great Tour and that I'd got to hang out with Robbie McEwen last week. They said, “Oh, well then you should go say hi to Robbie. He's just over there, talking to Michael Bolton.” I'm not kidding. I don't think I could have come up with a more unexpected statement if my life depended on it. Sure enough, there they both were, talking and signing autographs.
