A gut-buster, but good! Cadel Rules!!!!!

We have tried to avoid knowing the daily results of the Tour de France until we have seen the SBS highlights.  However this morning on our run I saw a neighbour's copy of the Canberra Times which rabbited about Cadel Evans being so close - but still a National hero.  Obviously he had lost.

Supporting this view was the absence, on Sunday, of headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times and Washington Post screaming that Cadel had done the business.  ( A similar quietness in the New Zealand Herald might have indicated that no-one from Palmerston North had won.)  After seeing the race I found the linked Post article: about 12 stories down in their sports pages and the Herald article in a side bar (because it isn't - thank goodness - Rugby League).  The offending newspapers did remedy their lack of interest on Monday (although the NZ Herald had it somewhat buried, and their report was exactly the same as the SMH, so both took it straight from AP).

But we already had the time trial recorded and duly sat down at 5:30pm to, regretfully, watch Cadel lose again.

As the event unfolded Phil Liggert and Paul Sherwin (both contenders for deification) started making calls about how he couldn't be beaten.  How did they get it so wrong???

They didn't.  He won!!  HE WON!!!

We kept wainting for the announcement that something had gone wrong.  It didn't seem to be coming so I went and checked the web.   HE WON!!!

All I can assume is we got what we paid for: stealing a look at a paper totally misled me and thus us.  Or else the Canberra Times totally stuffed up (or we saw yesterday's edition)!  The other journals merely display their usual ignorance about important stuff!  I don't care: he must be Australian of the year, World Sportsman of the Century etc etc .

HE WON!!!

I am even thinking of going to see the Tour Down Under in Adelaide next year in the expectation that he will be there and I can kiss the pavement he has walked on. 

Following Denis Wilson's example here is a breakdown of the degrees of separation between myself and Cadel.
  1. In 1997 I was in Denmark and saw the European U23 MTB Championships.  This was won by Miguel Martinez of Spain.  I cheered him on.
  2. Martinez was a rival of Cadel's when they both started out.
 That is possibly a bit of a cheat as I didn't actually get a reply to my cheers (going up a 20m high 15% slope I wouldn't reply either). So here is another go: I have deleted the names as I can't check that using them is OK.
  1. A close friend of mine, now deceased, was a good friend ..
  2. of another Australian professional cyclist until a serious crash ended his career.  The APC
  3. would certainly have known Cadel well.
We're almost brothers!

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