rick james
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Re: El Pistolero - Story on the brilliance of Alberto Contad
And with that his is last ever act in Le Tour...sad really
gregrowlerson said:07collian said:Bit of a long read but I found it super enjoyable.
http://theballpoint.org/index.php/2016/11/05/el-pistolero/
First two paragraphs
Six kilometres from the finish line, Frank Schleck launches an acceleration. It’s a just a short, exploratory jab, a “How are the legs today boys?” kind of inquiry. Bertie was the first to respond, straight on to his back wheel, followed by Lance, Andy & Wiggo. They were all back together again. Frank Schleck, Andy Schleck, Bradley Wiggins, Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador. The crème-de-la-crème of this year’s Tour, the five men who would make up the top five at the end of this 3,459.5 kilometre odyssey.
The ploy from the Schleck brothers was as old as the sport itself, the classic one-two. As Contador would chase down one brother the other one would go, and they would continue inflicting this pain until Bertie would be too exhausted to respond to one of their accelerations. But today was not the day. With 5.6 kilometres to go, Contador looked at the faces of his four adversaries. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as what is simply now known as “The Look”, immortalized in 2001 on the slopes of the most iconic climb in cycling, Alpe d’Huez, but it was intimidating never the less.
I walked up the entire Verbier ascent last year (one of the better experiences of my life) and found that at the very point of Alberto's unanswerable attack, there is this tribute on the stone wall:
https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13221506_10154886473220752_27336787299686929_n.jpg?oh=ce93c9ffc6811eb67df0de01775e003e&oe=58CE0B96
And with that his is last ever act in Le Tour...sad really