Tuesday, July 07, 2009

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Or, At Least, Weirded Out!

It struck me as funny as anything I have ever seen in sports.

For over 30 years I have paid close attention to The Tour de France. I consider it one of the premier sporting events in the world. The Tour is over three weeks of team work, luck, and guts beyond measure.

At the end of each stage there is a short ceremony presenting the awards and/or jerseys for the individual stage winner, the leader of various competitions within the race, and, of course, the presentation of the yellow jersey to Lance Armstrong the overall leader of race.

The awards/jerseys are always presented to the cyclist by the two rule 5 beauties flanking him. For example, the woman to his left will help him put on the jersey, the other will present him with a bouquet, the first will hand him the stuffed lion, and he will give and receive kisses on the cheek to and from them.

After that the leader receives his applause, looking something like this.


The Swiss Tour is similar.


But today's overall leader, Fabian Cancellara, was honored to have BEN STILLER help him with the yellow jersey and present the mascot stuffed lion. (Kisses for the babe on his right, but a belated, awkward handshake for Stiller.)

Rumor has it that Armstrong's Astana team slowed their team time trial finish by a tenth of a second because they found out that Stiller was participating. The French Tour administrators had Stiller's lips slathered with lip balm laced with steroids in hopes that his cheek kisses would cause Lance to finally test positive for banned substances.

Armstrong is considered to be in second place even though his total time is the same as Cancellara's.

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