sissy gladiators

Repeat some imaginary transgression long enough, have it repeated by those in authority, have it repeated by the media and you create ... guilt.

No, I'm for once not talking about religion ... although the parallel is of course very clear. No I'm talking about what happened in the Tour de France yesterday. The yellow jersey (Andy Schleck) had a mechanical problem and his biggest opponent (Alberto Contador) took the chance and ... the yellow jersey. And he's probably going to keep it.

I do not see the problem. Nor did Alberto at first yesterday. He did not sabotage Andy's bike or in any other way cause it to fail. Andy was obviously pissed, the media jumped on that and then Andy said : "Alberto should have waited ... this is not fair ...".

Excuse me ? If it wasn't for a disgusting display of 'solidarity' earlier on in the Tour, Andy would have been out of the race for the yellow jersey a long time ago (he was 'fair' enough to at least acknowledge that).

The Tour de France is a modern gladiator-fight. I do not know about you, but I want to see struggle, emotion and battles. I want to see the balance of victory swing not once, not twice but every day (if possible). What I do not want to see is a Cars-like ending (anyone else notice the similarity ?) that only Pixar and Disney can come up with and only - very - small childeren like. Life is not like that.

This morning the nauseating result of media-, team- and 'authority' pressure came in over the radio. Alberto 'apologizes' for what he did ...

My sympathy goes to Marc Renshaw. What he did was not correct, but at least he understands the nature of the game.