I feel like a gawker at a car crash.
I know cycling is so riddled with doping its results are as suspect as Barry Bonds’ home runs and Marion Jones’ Olympic medals.
But I can’t keep my eyes off the Tour de France–even when that means “watching” updates on my BlackBerry, as I did Thursday while sitting in an airplane on the tarmac, waiting for the weather to clear at O’Hare.
The race is addictive, never more so than this year, which has produced the Tour’s most exciting final weekend since 1989, when Greg LeMond made up a 50-second deficit in a short 15-mile time trial on the last day.
Lance Armstrong’s seven straight victories were more compelling for their human interest than their competitive interest. Only once, in 2003, did Armstrong go into the last three days with the outcome even remotely in doubt. That doubt dissipated quickly when his leading rival, Germany’s Jan Ullrich, fell as he tried to make up 65 seconds in a rainy time trial in the penultimate stage.
Now we have Floyd Landis, left for dead after dropping 8 minutes 8 seconds off the lead Wednesday, then rallying Thursday to erase all but 30 seconds of that deficit in what Outdoor Life Network commentator and former Tour rider Bob Roll called “the greatest single ride in the modern Tour de France era.”
Landis figures to wipe out that deficit in Saturday’s 35-mile time trial, but who knows how he will recover from Thursday’s effort in a Tour that has defied calculation?
I’ll be watching.
