Tour de France 2009

Armstrong's fifth SI cover

Here's the cover of the new Sports Illustrated. None of the text content is online yet, but I'll post a link when it is...

sfgate.com | Outdoor Life Network gets big boost from Tour de France

Saturday's coverage from 9-11:30 a.m. EDT of the next-to-last stage of the Tour -- a time trial in which Armstrong beat runner-up Jan Ullrich by 11 seconds -- garnered a 1.5 rating, equal to about 806,000 homes, an all-time high for the network.

Eurosport | And the winner is...

Eurosport offers a terrific Tour wrapup, handing out a number of prizes:

Best prediction:Gilberto Simoni , boasting to Italian reporters he'd wear the yellow jersey on the evening following the team time trial (his team finished 17th out of 21). If not then, the winner of the Giro promised the lead would be his atop l'Alpe d'Huez. He finished 45th that day, 6:10 behind Iban Mayo.

Most sporting gesture: the handshake initiated by Fabio Sacchi at the conclusion of his successful escape with Jakob Piil in the long straightaway leading to the finish in Marseille. The Dane would prevail some 800m laters.

Sign of Zorro, sort of: another toss up as first there was the Toulouse finish and Juan Antonio Flecha simulating Robin Hood with a bow and arrow (his name means arrow in Spanish), then not to be outdone by his fellow Spaniard, on the next stage, Carlos Sastre's pacifier in the mouth - in honour of his baby.

Definitely check it out....

BBC Sport | Tour legends back Armstrong

BBC Sport has analyses from the other 5-timers on Lance Armstrong's chances of winning a 6th Tour next year:

• Eddy Merckx:

  Merckx, winner in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974, said he could even see Armstrong winning a seventh Tour.

  "He can win a sixth and, why not, a seventh Tour, if he concentrates solely on that one race," the Belgian told the Le Parisien newspaper.

  "He knows how to prepare himself and with his drive and talent a sixth win is forseeable."

  "When you know how much he suffers in the heat you have to recognise how intelligently he raced this year."

  "If Armstrong is motivated, perfectly prepared and avoids bad luck, he can win again."



• Bernard Hinault:

  "It's not mission impossible. He can do it," he said. "But the opposition will be even tougher. The margin will be even slimmer."



• Miguel Indurain:

  "I hope he can do it again. But if nobody has done it so far it shows how hard it is," said the Spaniard.

  "When you get to 32, the years count double. I found out in 1996 when the Tour was going through my hometown at Pamplona.

  "I was desperate to win but the legs had gone. That was the year I was 32."

Yahoo! Sport | Armstrong to face strong challenge in 2004

The "big four", as they are dubbed in cycling circles, have all failed in their quest for a sixth success, mostly because they were beaten by an up and coming young rider.

Indurain lost to Dane Bjarne Riis in 1996, but the star of the Tour that year was young German Jan Ullrich.

Hinault was beaten in 1986 by young American Greg LeMond, while Merckx discovered his limits against Frenchman Bernard Thevenet.

Armstrong has pledged he will be better prepared next year than he was in this Tour, calling his condition "unacceptable".

"I'll return next year and not to finish second," he warned.

BBC Sport | Millar commits to Cofidis

He said: "I had thought about changing but never really negotiated with another team. The way we worked in Le Tour suited me." Millar, 26, has now won three stages on the Tour after he won the prologue in 2000 and the stage to Beziers in 2002.

Somewhat oddly, the length of the extension is not mentioned. Both Tyler Hamilton's CSC team and Lance Armstrong's USPS squad had been mentioned as other competitors for Millar's services.

Update: This version of the story, in The Scotsman, says the extension is through 2005.

washingtonpost.com | Extra Ordinary In Ways Unseen

Sally Jenkins takes us beyond what Lance Armstrong has done to what does Lance Armstrong mean? Was his success, even in the face of cancer, predetermined by his genes, or is there something more at work?

She offers her perspective as an author who co-authored Lance Armstrong's books, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life and the forthcoming Every Second Counts.

She compares Lance's stage win with the way he fought his cancer:

He fought like that on the climb up Luz-Ardiden to victory in the Pyrenees, after crashing last week. The thing you can't know about Lance on a climb, until you've seen him do it in person, is that the effort is so severe that his eyes become completely bloodshot from burst capillaries.

"Why do you do it?" I asked him once. "What's the pleasure in riding a bike up a mountain for six hours?"

"I don't understand the question," he said.

"Well, there has to be some pleasure in it," I said. "I mean, your back hurts, your neck hurts, your butt hurts. What's the payoff?"

"I still don't understand the question."

I went away baffled -- and convinced that unless I could get him to talk to me on the subject, I'd never understand him. After a couple of days of thought, I realized I'd been asking the entirely wrong question.

"You don't do it for the pleasure," I said. "You do it for the pain."

"That's exactly right," he said.

If you want to know to what extent Armstrong's success comes from being a mutant, and to what extent it results from pure will, check out this column.

Graham Watson | Stage 20 photo gallery

Click for Graham Watson Stage 20 photo gallery

At right, Armstrong with Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, and Miguel Indurain, the other living members of the 5-Timers Club.

VeloNews | Stage 20 Casey Gibson photo gallery

Click for Stage 20 Casey Gibson photo gallery

Some shots of the Tour's publicity caravan, which precedes the riders along the Tour route.

sfgate.com | Injured Hamilton wonders 'What if?'

I can't speak for Tyler Freaking Hamilton, who completed a tremendous feat of arms today, made worse by the cobbles of the Champs Elysees. I'll let the man speak for himself:

"The way you deal with the low points in your life is what makes you a person," Hamilton said Sunday, "and I think I dealt with a difficult situation the best I could."

He wound up fourth in the overall standings, 6 minutes, 17 seconds behind five-time champion Lance Armstrong.

"I'll always look back and think, 'What if?"' said Hamilton, speaking on the train taking cyclists to the outskirts of Paris for Sunday's final stage.

"But that's life. Life is a roller coaster ride."

Update: We need a Tyler Hamilton picture, so here's one. As always, click through to see the source, in this case Yahoo! Sport's AP photo gallery.