Tour de France 2016

yes.

and/but/anyway, you can interpret it any way you want, I was just stating that according to the rules, there's no difference between taking a wheel from another team's rider or another team's car. Ever thought of getting a job in PR/politics? ;-)

is anyone a bit suspicious about the series editor of that book on cycling philosophy .... a certain f.all(h)off

I was in two minds about it: on one level it is quite accurate, I liked him citing the Spanish writer as Froome being 'Frankenstein in Brailsford's hands', but at the same time I didn't like the negative, sneering tone. But Froome is strange, shy in his speaking, submissive in his body-language, curious on the bike. His career does feel stage-managed, both by Sky and by Cound. This Tour in particular felt like a charm-offensive for the French people at times, the PR machine in overdrive to banish the antipathy of the previous Tour. His 'unplanned' swashbuckling attack on the descent, and his surge to follow Sagan. Sky took risks, and we didn't see any devastating attacks on the mountains like the Ventoux in 2013.

I think perhaps his point is that for all the efforts to make Froome charming it only makes him more charmless, but to cite the Ventoux incident, which quite brazenly he suggested was down to the machinations of Brailsofrd rather than an independent decision by the commissaires, as a missed opportunity in winning over a skeptical public is absurd.

lets face it, the French are never going to love Chris Froome, I mean we Brits struggle. At best he may earn a grudging respect and a belief he isn't doped to the gills.

Ooh also 'Black Watch' was a good term for his Lieutenants on the climbs.

Yeah, I quite liked Black Watch as well.

I don't think it's absurd to see it as a missed opportunity (not to suggest the decision should have gone another way). It would have added a bit more drama to the race - if Froome doesn't have competition in his competitors, throwing fortune (perhaps a French journalist would say Fortuna) into the mix would have helped. Everyone loves an underdog, or someone who succeeds in spite of an injustice.

Froome could have been Rudy!

I guess since it was the commisaire's decision, berating Froome for 'missing the opportunity' to charm the French seems unfair. He didn't make the decision, and ultimately I doubt it would have endeared him to the French, who at the end of the day seem to rarely like the winner of the race anyway. At the end of the day who do you want to be, Poulidor or Anquetil?

Actually Anquetil is a really bad example considering the sort of person he was (all that business with his wife's daughter, just not cricket), but you'll take the point: be a winner, or be popular?

In that sense, yeah, opportunity is the wrong word.

I'm sure he'd rather be a winner, but a lot of people would rather be popular (or at least liked). But that's why competitive athletes - especially at that level - aren't quite normal.

I hadn't heard of that before, it sounds like the most bizarre Jerry Springer plot ever.

Anquetil married Janine Boeda on 22 December 1958. She had been married to Anquetil's doctor. The doctor, seeing a rival, sent his wife to live with friends. Anquetil went to see her, disguised as a plumber, and took her off to Paris to buy clothes in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Their marriage produced no children. Janine had two children, Alain and Annie, from her previous marriage. Janine had two failed pregnancies and Anquetil grew upset in 1970 that he wasn't a father. The couple considered a surrogate mother before Janine thought of her daughter, Annie. Janine said: "We didn't use the parental authority that we could have had over her. It was a request that I addressed to her. Gently. Annie always had the choice of refusing." Annie confirmed her mother's recollection. She said:
“ When my mother asked that [I should become impregnated by my step-father, Anquetil].... I was totally breathtaken by the proposition.... But, mind, I accepted willingly. I have to admit that at the time, despite being 18 years old, I was in love with Jacques. And I knew that I pleased him. What do you expect? That's life. And that's how I found myself in his bed in the sacred mission of procreation.”
Anquetil, his wife and his wife's daughter began a ménage à trois[27] Annie said:
“ "Nobody thought it strange that Jacques Anquetil joined me in my bed each evening before returning to the marital bed beside my mother. Everybody was comfortable with it [Tout le monde était à l'aise]."
”
Annie said she should have left the house after her daughter, Sophie, was born (in 2004, Sophie Anquetil published the book Pour l'amour de Jacques in which she confirmed what had been rumoured but what Anquetil had always tried to hide: that she was Anquetil's daughter). Instead, she grew jealous of her own mother and demanded that she leave instead. When Janine refused, Annie left instead.
To fill the gap in the house, Janine invited her son, Alain, and his wife, Dominique, to return to live there. Anquetil began an affair with Dominique, to make Annie jealous. Dominique had Anquetil's child but Annie still refused to return. Dominique still lives in the house, Les Elfes, where she organises conferences. Janine and Anquetil divorced. Sophie moved in with Janine, although she lives now in Calenzana, near Calvi. Both Janine and Dominique wrote their life story: neither mentioned the link between Sophie and Anquetil.

He seems to think the public's affection for Virenque is a vindication of Virenque rather than a cautionary tale about taking too seriously what the public feel. Virenque wasn't authentic, he would do anything, be anyone, to be popular and only showed any emotion on a bike when the camera was on him when he would suddenly start gurning and grimacing to show his adoring fans how hard France's favourite boy-next-door worked for their enjoyment.

I think it was in Willy Voet's book where he said he thought Virenque was lazy and never made the most of his potential, wasn't it? Either lazy, or just afraid to challenge properly.

That Anquetil stuff is bonkers. I'd never heard that! And to think Coppi was disgraced because he had an affair/marriage with a married lady...

Virenque and Millar make a nice pair, both self-pitying narcissists whose disgrace hasn't held them back. One through overweening repentance and one through absolute shamelessness. They've both, somehow, managed to become even more pleased with themselves than they were before they were exposed as cheats.

Anquetil was a proper freak, certainly one of the most interesting characters to grace the sport. Also an enthusiastic proponent of the use of stimulants to race. Mostly he gave zero fucks.

His social media presence was lamentable though.

I was holding on to the last vestiges of admiring and respecting Millar, even through the whole hat business. Alas this Maserati nonsense has turned him in to an utter cock.

Such stylised prose. Are you secretly French, Will?

Je suis Froomey.

Please expand on both the hat and Maserati business, I must have missed...

He wears a dumb hat on TV. A really dumb hat.

Last year he wore a hat during live broadcast. It was godawful. I think he wore it briefly this year.

This year he became a brand ambassador for Maserati and it's been an exercise in vapid cockishness all along.

I liked him in Sherlock but thought his performance in Imitation Game was next level...

Omg just googled it, I mean which one?

The beret?

The Tribly?

The...what ever the hell this is?

He's such a twat (I mean that in the nicest possible way). The problem is people (really the press) feed his sartorial ego. They have created a monster.

For that beret alone he deserves a long, sustained cock-punching

I think you'll find it summarised quite well here by @ùbér_grùbér

http://www.bedlam.cc/post/139169061284/f%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration-fran%C3%A7aise-de-cyclisme-hire-david-millar

Edit: Beaten to it!