The 1996 Tour De France: Brilliant!

In preparation for this year's Tour, my friend Sandy lent me her video of the 1996 Tour. The winner is Bjarne Riis--current Director Sportiv of the CSC team. It is fantastic. For all of you cycling geeks, here are some of my favorite highlights of this video so far:

1. The Big Mig, Miguel Indurain, pops in his attempt to win a 6th Tour. He is a very large cyclist, compared to many. Very interesting to see him next to the smaller cyclists.

2. Bjarne Riis is the team leader for Telekom. This 1996 version of Deutsche Telekom has one very fast Erik Zabel in the green jersey and in his first Tour, a very young Jan Ullrich.

3. Johan Bruyneel, the current mastermind of the Postal/Lance/Discovery juggernaut, rides off the side of a mountain and reappears to be no worse for the wear. He is, however, about 40 pounds lighter than he is now as DS of Discovery--skinnier than heck!

4. "Big" Lance Armstrong (yes, Phil refers to him as big in this race) quits early in the first week of the race. He is riding, pre-cancer, at a weight of 170-something. Unbeknownst to anyone, he is riding riddled with tumors in his lungs. His whole persona is so different at this time. Very brash and arrogant, he is shown fighting--throwing punches--at another rider whom he believes caused a crash.

5. Georgie Hincapie crashes out. Laurent Jalabert, a personal favorite of mine, retires early as well.

6. The bikes look ancient. And in France, no helmets are required. Boo!

7. Cipollini wins ONE flat stage and then withdraws, in order to prepare for the '96 Olympic Games.

8. And last but not least, we see one of the best names in sport compete: The very handsome sprinter, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov. Great legs on the former Soviet racer.

Comments

Senor Cheeseburger said…
Look at me!
8:53 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A System of the Absurd

Charge for wellness checkup blood tests @ St. Lukes Hospital: $1142.20. Amount written off by hospital as negotiated by Anthem BC/BS: $967.20. The insurance company pays NOTHING for this service. Amount patient required to pay: $175 Does any of this make sense? Does $1142.20 represent the true cost of doing the testing for the hospital? What if I had requested to pay cash for the whole thing? Same charge? BTW, my mom's hospital bill (Des Peres Hospital) for her same-day surgery (rotator cuff repair)--ready--$33,000. Not sure what her insurance is going to cover yet, but she was at the hospital from 8 am to 5 pm, and in actual surgery less than 2 hours. Never admitted to a room, just in and out burger style. The surgeon had 8 similar surgeries on the schedule that day. Bonus!
Read more

Form and Function

Image
Way back in 2002, I scanned these images by Howard Schatz from Sports Illustrated (October 14, 2002). A fascinating array of elite female athlete physiques, heights and weights, eh? These are some of the women featured in his book Athlete --a very cool pictorial essay that celebrates athletic form and function.
Read more

It's About Preparing People, not Preventing Injuries

ACL injuries do not happen in a void. People sustain injuries when their infrastructure is unable to manage a specific set of physical circumstances. To describe the mechanism of the injury without the context of the person and their level/type of sport, is to miss valuable insight. In sport, we prepare the person, to the best of our understanding, to meet the physical demands of that sport. We do not just work to prevent one particular injury; we prepare athletes to navigate the total sport physical environment. By "we" I mean the coaching and support staff -- specifically the athletic development staff.  Athletic development (AD) coaches prepare athletes through the development of physical literacy and movement competencies via movement progressions. It is more than strength, power, agility; it is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors to manage themselves within the entire sporting environment. At the higher levels of sport, AD coaches coordinate wit
Read more