04/25/24
July 22, 2012
SportsFilter: The Sunday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
"We're just going to draw the raffle numbers now." Chapeau, Bradley Wiggins.
posted by etagloh at 04:57 PM on July 22, 2012
Cavendish was spectacular both on Friday and today in sprints that were totally different. On friday he arrowed by two men who were sprinting flat out at the time and immediately sat up in their saddles, knowing their chance was gone, whereas today he turned on the gas while already at the front and led a much longer sprint to the finish.
I hope we see a lot more of him smiling in the next couple weeks.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 05:09 PM on July 22, 2012
That was a textbook lead-out, and I think having Wiggins drive the pace at the 1km kite endeared him a bit more to the French cycling fans, because there's no reason for the yellow jersey to be at the front unless he specifically chooses that role.
The Champs-Elysees finish is tricky: a little bit uphill, and the stretch from that final bend is just long enough to be out of most sprinters' comfort zones. In 2009 and 2011, Cav was launched by Renshaw with about 250m to go; in 2010, he didn't have a proper lead-out but bombed past Hushovd and Petacchi at around the same distance.
Before the stage today, Cav gave an interview where he said that all he needed was to be in front coming out of that corner. I think the win on Friday, where he had to bridge the gap to the remnants of a breakaway, told him that he had 500m of flat-out in his legs. He delivered on that: watching it live, I knew nobody was going to catch him.
posted by etagloh at 07:24 PM on July 22, 2012
I turned off the Open Championship after Tiger triple-bogeyed, and Scott made par. I figured it was pretty much a done deal since it didn't look like any of the other challengers on the leaderboard were going to put anything together, and Scott had a nice 4 shot lead again.
Imagine my surprise when I checked the results a few minutes ago...