smoked, part ii

Nicole just called to tell me the news. Tyler Hamilton took time trial gold in Athens! He beat Ekimov by a healthy 18+ seconds and absolutely smoked Ulrich - the favorite - by over a minute.

It must feel good to finally let it all come out. The Tugboat incident, the spoiled tour, the ho-hum road race. That's what time trials are good for: venting. Especially when you should be winning and you're not.

smoked

I don't know if any of y'all saw the men's 4x100 freestyle relay last night, but the US team - who have only once settled for less than Olympic gold - got absolutely destroyed by the South African team. Times and splits aside, the image of a US relay team behind by what appeared to be more than two body lengths at the midpoint of the race was stunning and almost incomprehensible for swimming insiders to behold. That was one of the most convincing beat-downs I've ever witnessed.

But it seems to be a theme this year. The US is getting smoked left and right.

Check out the US men's basketball team - wiped by Puerto Rica. The cyclists, left in the dust.

But hey, we just had a rough weekend, right?

It's over . . .

Well, Tyler's race was over a few stages ago. He bit the dust in stage six and pulled out when they hit the mountains in stage 13. A half a dozen other great riders also dropped out over the last few stages.

Lance kicked the tar out of everyone on L'Alpe D'Huez today, despite some crazy enthusiastic spectators. Now he knows what it's like to be Michael Jackson.

It looks like Lance has put things well out of reach. Barring a catastrophe, the rest of the Tour should be pretty boring.

Preppin' for the tour

Forget Lance, forget Jan, Nicole and I have decided to give our substantial endorsement to Tyler Hamilton this year. By some accounts he has a shot at the jaundice jersey.

I was on my way down to Florida last summer when I stopped into a friends house and watched Tyler pull out a crazy stage 16 victory that left me with a buzz for about a week. You can still check out the clip of him finishing that stage here. He's my man this year.

The little things

In the spirit of Ben's post the other day - I had a little things moment last night.

I joined the Y here in Queens the other night -$37/mo as opposed to $85/mo in DC. I mainly joined for the really nice little pool they have there. Yesterday the pool was pretty crowded so I ventured up to the cardio machine room. I usually try to avoid those places because many times creepy folks hang out on the stairmasters and recumbant cyclo-machines and check each other out.

There was a row of those new-fangled tredmills full of bells and whistles, but there were two of the old-school hard core looking tredmills down at the end. So I got onto one of those and started running and whadda you know but these ones went up to 12mph! It was a Spinal Tap moment. I haven't been on a tredmill that went past 10 since I was in college. I was totally jazzed and it gave me something to look forward to - using the 12 setting without getting thrown off the back of the machine.

Atta boy

Here's a young guy (24) in Wyoming who has ITU racing asperations and is going to take a few others with him. Nick has set up a little business for the sole purpose of funding himself and a couple of other lucky contestants to train full time and become elite triathletes on the world cicuit.

Go ahead Team Grind.

Back to the Burn

I put on the running shoes for the first time tonight since I've moved to New York. Come to think of it, it may have been the first time since I left Florida last August. 37:05 later I almost wish I hadn't put them on at all. It's never much fun to start over. The curiosity of the first time is gone and the memory of the best time always forgets what it took to get there.

I'm going to call the route I ran tonight the Lighthouse Loop. There's a lighthouse on the north point of Roosevelt Island and tonight, I looped it. One down.

Sissy Stores

There is something strange going on in Time Square these days. It's the sporting good stores, they're getting really wierd. Ever since I've been up here I've been looking to buy one of those little supplement/waterbottle combos. You know, buy a pound of CytoMax and get the free waterbottle that comes along with it. I usually like these deals because the waterbottles are generally oversized and make for a good office companion so I can hydrate while in meetings.

Here's the rub. None of the sporting goods store in or around Time Square (and there are at least six of them) sell any sporting goods. It's really bizarre - I can get a pair of 1984 Jordan's or a pair of Adidas with no laces (like Run DMC) but not a single item that pertains to actual exercise or sport.

So, at the risk of looking like a sissy, I humbled myself and bought a water bottle from Starbucks. Pale green.