Well, back-to-back wins by Battaglin and Aru saved my week from disaster, but things are far from being the most rosy (no Giro-leader-shirt pun intended) in terms of the near future. Aru is fulfilling my prediction of ascendancy (with Scarponi, who I picked in the 'career in decline' game, living up to his end of the deal), so that's great. Hesjedal seems to be hanging in there despite looking terrible, and has proven to be his strongest in the third week in the past, so I could be looking at a top ten or better if he stays consistent and a few other guys crack. That's the best-case scenario - my other guys in the Giro have been invisible, I suppose I can cross my fingers for Anacona or Van Baarle (or, god forbid, De Gendt) to grab an opportunistic break in the third week and snatch a stage victory, but there's not much else to cheer for. When are you back to racing, Contador?
This week, I have Boonen in Belgium, Gerdemann, Craddock, Dombrowski and Bennett in Bayern (and LL Sanchez is on the start list despite me reading that he's taking a break), Formolo in this fjords race. So a few things going on.
In other news, Taylor Phinney fractured his leg, but after winning the US TTs. This is unfortunate, but as far as his CQ points go, if he has to miss the TdF and comes back to peak again for stuff like Eneco and the WCTTs, it could be good in the end.
Finally, just going back through this thread and wanted to address CQ Manager's comments last week about the organizers 'disappearing' and updates not happening. I know it's been addressed by others, but I wanted to touch on it as this year's 'main' organizer. So regards to the comment about Hugo not being here, of course he's not since he's not organizing the game anymore. It doesn't seem strange that he's 'disappeared', since that was announced well in advance. As far as I go, I let it be known last year that I could compile the spreadsheet in January and launch the game, but I've been working from April-July in a bush camp every year since long before this forum was around, so that limits my internet severely (sometimes one day a week, like this week). So yes, I am not around either. mc mountain was the person who pulled together all the moving parts and has kept this thing on track, alerting those who volunteered to do updates when their turn was coming up etc. So I, and we, are in debt to him for that. Regardless of whether some people have had pleasant or unpleasant exchanges with each other on this forum, I just want to give credit where credit is due for this year's game. It's been a fun and competitive game thus far; let's keep it up.
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