Barefoot Clemson Fan gives school worldwide exposure

Brooks Keys was the guy running with the orange and white Clemson flag on the final ascent of stage 17. I didn't know what was up, but certainly noticed the flag. Not as memorable as Antlers Guy, but striking all the same.

The Palmetto Scoop adds to his 15 seconds of fame.

Could Chris Horner be on Radio Shack next year?

Maybe. But seems likely when reading his "blog" on oregon live.

Tour de France=Woodstock Every Day

How's that for a comparison? You think Woodstock was big? What if they had Woodstock for 21 days? The Tour is actually a bit bigger, but it gives you a sense of size.

That's the point of The Tour de France- Woodstock redux in The Examiner. Those people sure try hard.

Coming to Your Local Cinema, or Netflix, in Spring 2010

Chasing Legends. It's a documentary look at Team Columbia at the 2009 Tour de France.

So far, they only have a trailer to critique. I think if they're going to take the historic angle, they need both rainy weather and crashes to make the preview any good.

Armstrong Accepts Doping Suspicion?

That's what he tells the Telegraph in the UK.

"His remarkable achievements in cycling's premier event, however, has led to persistent accusations of doping. 'With spectacular performance, you just get that,' he said. 'Cycling has got itself to this place, where it has to be like that.'"

You do. And maybe should, in all walks of sport and life. But he might have had a hand in the suspicion following him around?

Still, here's the most revealing quote from the piece, :

“Definitely in the past [I was pretty hard on people around me]. Before, I would tell the guys in the team, ‘You’re not talking to anybody. We’re here to race, three weeks; you can talk to your friends afterwards.’ Now the rest of the peloton see me and think, ‘He actually talks to us!’”

The Next Front in the War on Doping: High School Football

The NY Times is on the doping beat. The culprit this time appears to be over-the-counter supplements that contain designer steroids. The problem is that the stuff may cause serious liver damage.

article is here.

Stage 19, the last shot for the breakaway artists?

I might prefer the term "headbanger." Nothing like riding off the front of the hardest race in the world for 160km. Today's stage, a "transition" stage that will take the race to the foothills near the brutal Mont Ventoux, could be one for those opportunists who need to get their team some airtime.

Looking at which teams have neither a stage win nor a day in a jersey, that means that Silence-Lotto, Rabobank, Quick Step, Cofidis, Garmin, Francaise Des Jeux, Lampre, Milram, and Skil-Shimano are bound to be throwing down the attacks the moment they pass kilometer zero. Of those teams, Garmin is the only one that might hold back a few riders, as they still have a chance at a podium placing. The others need to get in their attacks right away and they can pretty much put everyone they've got left to the job.

in other doping news...

Disgraced 1997 Tour champ Jan Ullrich calls drug testing "inhumane." Maybe that's a mistranslation of Ullrich's colloquial German.

The story comes from Eurosport.

Ullrich, "The boys are thrown out of their beds at 6:30 in the morning. A controller comes into the room and stays with them all the time. From where I'm sitting that's inhumane"

Armstrong is quoted, too: "You can't go and pull guys out of bed at 6am. If I came to your room at six in the morning, you'd throw the furniture at me."

Except that pro cyclists gave their permission when they signed on for this gig.

But in fairness, there is drug abuse in many job environments. Does it constitute an unfair edge? I'd hate to think I'd need to take amphetamines or Adderall for my job, though I suppose if it could help me doing something really dangerous, I might think otherwise. But then, why am I doing the dangerous thing to begin with?