Who's Got the Maillot Jaune?

I debated about watching the Tour this year, especially because they still haven't ruled on whether Floyd Landis actually won the Tour last year. It was a lot of time to pour into something (as one of the commentators said, "it's 4 hrs of Marie Antoinette and 20 minutes of Die Hard") that had no satisfactory conclusion.

Surprisingly, it's been pretty fun so far. The tour is a totally different game without Lance Armstrong (the patron of the peloton) or a clear favorite. It was the case last year but last year felt weird because they kicked out the big favorites two days before the tour started and this year we've had a lot of time to adjust to the controversy around Floyd Landis. Also last year I think they anointed Floyd Landis as the clear favorite pretty early on, whereas all the big contenders have been relatively silent this year (except when they have crashed. ouch).

It's pretty mesmerizing to watch a pack of cyclist essentially swallow up the leaders close to the finish each day and to listen to the commentators debate when and whether or not the "catch" is going to happen. And they are very elegant in their own way, whether they are free-wheeling down the mountain or

I've also noticed the difference between the commentators since sometimes I catch the same bit on TV in the morning and at night. In the morning you get the team of Paul Sherwen and Phil Ligget (two Brits- one of whom runs a gold mine when he's not covering cycling! it's so agatha christie!) and at night you get Al Trautwig and Bob Rolls (two Americans). If I had more time I think it would be really interesting to study the transcripts of their commentaries around the same moments, especially when they have totally opposite viewpoints. I want to say it's a very interdependent view of things vs an independent view (this bring me back to my psychology days where we talk about how some cultures promote interdependent view of self vs. independent views). But it's hard to say without more analysis.

For example, when Tom Boonen's leadout man won a jersey (you typically expect his lead out man to lead him in to win the stage, not actually clinch the stage himself), Paul and Phil said that Tom would be happy for his teammate and/or didn't want to rob him of the victory if he could win it, and Al and Bob thought that Tom Boonen just didn't have the legs to pass his teammate. Yesterday they also differed in opinion on whether or not Vinokurov (race favorite who crashed HARD) would make it back to the main field before they reached the finish line. It does make sense for different people to have different prediction, but it's interesting that the different pairs both agreed in their predictions.

Maybe I just miss the days in the ol' psych lab.