Ok so can you tell me why in Poland they like to put everything other then Polish in French? I remember being at the post office once in Warsaw and trying to send stuff back and I either had to read Polish or French. I suppose I got a taste of my own medicine for being a stupid English-only speaker. Geniune question as well
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well.. i don't know where that post office was, but since almost 30 years I have never met a Pole in this country who speaks French fluent - especially at the post office
. but before IIww French was almost second official language in Poland. Almost everyone exept peasants spoke french . Did you want a job ? only with french as the second language. Did you want to be a teacher.. french required etc. i don't know why ... maybe cause french and especially italian is for Poles much more easy to learn than english or german. by the way.. poland was a quite different country 70years ago, but this is no place to discuss historical issiues . Btw.. i suppose whole Europe spoke French instead English then
Someone who organized this race in 1928 called it officially Bieg dookoła Polski what means Run around Poland or Race around Poland.. something like this. later it was translated into french.
Back to today's race. Szmyd said a few minutes ago that he has good legs but there was no route for them. mountains were to short and tempo was to high to make some attacks. i can agree - TdP is a boring race and this is the race for classics riders - not for climbers. Poland has no mountains for some big race. There are some serious climbs (to Morskie Oko for example - very nice ascent with beatifull views) but almost whole Tatras on Polish side and Slovakian as well are closed for car traffic cause it is national park there. But I've heard that next year the route should include mountains in Slovakia but i don't know if it is true. there is an issue of poor roads in the mountains, issue of private property of some parts of the roads etc..
Today's stage was a joke - mountain stage and ballan almost wins it from bunch sprint. he is great rider but he is any serious climber. that was no mountain stage - that was stage simmilar to classic race. whole this race is for classics riders like ballan or old mr bettini not for basso or even contador (but contador won his first time trial in TdP if i'm correct).
Deutschland Tour is quite different race and there is no sense to compare these two races. but for me every race can be boring if someone compares it to the Giro or TDF. Riders make race interesting - not route alone and best riders prefers vuelta or tdf than TDP, TdU or DT