The Sunday Times: Back from the abyss
Sports Interviewer of the Year and former Tour de France cyclist Paul Kimmage writes for The Sunday Times about how Team Garmin-Chipotle has restored his faith in the future of the Tour de France.
From the article: “Did I believe in Christian Vande Velde? Was I prepared to make the ultimate act of faith? Yes, absolutely…I believed in him because we sat down for two hours one night and he told me about his life. I believed in him because of Vaughters; I believed in him because of Lim; I believed him because of Reichlin and Steffen and Frischkorn and Pate. I believed in him because of Millar. And as an extension of that belief, I was forced to engage with the race.”
“Vande Velde was my new barometer. Could a clean rider compete with the rocket-fuelled exploits of cheats such as Riccardo Ricco and his pals at Saunier Duval? No, we had witnessed the difference on the Col D’Aspin. But as soon as the Italian was snared the waters were clearer…”
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This entry was posted
on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Garmin Web Site, Home Page, News and tagged with Christian Vande Velde, David Millar, Jonathan Vaughters, Tour de France.
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Christian’s performance has definitely restored my faith in the tour.
The US Media is making a big deal about the positives, but I think its starting to show that the testing is catching up.
Great job guys, the team definitely exceeded everybody’s expectations.
Great article — I was struck by his comment that “…we witnessed the scenes that had once made the race so special… the truth is in the pain; the mouths gaping for breath; the eyes rolling with tiredness ….this is how it looks when it’s clean.” I said the same thing to my husband as we were watching the live show that morning–that in 10 years of following the Tour, I had never seen anything that looked as real, and as beautiful, as that stage. For us regular folks out here who ride & race our bikes, that day was something we could all believe in and relate to. Major props to Garmin and the rest of teams who are bringing the love, humanity, and reality back to this sport.
I been following P.K for a while apart from fact the sun times is my weekly my point being that his articals are straight from the hip no BS which makes my faith in yr clean mean team kosher. GREAT TOUR WELL DONE REALLY ENJOYED IT THANKS
i thought this article was amazing- so much so that im thinking of framing it and putting it on my wall! well done !