Where’s the Tour de France
On a day, when we’re going to win France’s most prestigious sporting trophy, where is the action?
Radio 5 has some golf and you can only get fleeting bits between the adverts on ITV4.
The Black Prince, Henry V, Hawke, Cochrane, Nelson, Wellington and John Churchill will all be spinning in their graves. I suspect too,that even the French won’t be very pleased, as I think they’d prefer to see France shown at its best to Les Anglais and also as they’ve rather taken to our Bradley. Perhaps we can all take a leaf out of his book and learn to speak better French.
Wiggins Plays The Gentleman
It’s not often that the Corinthian spirit shines through in modern sport, but when someone decided to throw tacks on the route of the Tour de France yesterday, Bradley Wiggins slowed the peloton to allow one of his rivals, Cadel Evans, to catch up. Read about it all here. Here’s an extract.
Race official Jean-Francois Pescheux confirmed: “The nails were mainly thrown on the ground around 200m from the summit.
“It was obviously done on purpose. We have the tacks but we don’t know who spread them. They are imbeciles.”
However, he was quick to praise the actions of Wiggins. “Sky showed they are for fair play,” he added. “They saw that something had happened and they slowed the peloton so that things could come together for the ride to the finish.”
Tour etiquette dictates that rivals do not take advantage of another rider’s misfortune and, as soon as he realised what was happening, Team Sky’s lead rider called for a truce.
“I thought it was the honourable thing to do,” said 32-year-old Wiggins who is aiming to become the first British rider to win the race. “Nobody wants to benefit from someone else’s misfortune.”
So in fact Wiggins was just following the etiquette. It’s a pity other sports don’t do the same.
There’s more on Wiggins here, who has now been hailed as Le Genteman by the Press.
The Queen Meets President Hollande Today
according to The Times, the Queen will meet President Hollande today for thirty minutes. They will meet without interpreters and it is expected that they will talk in French. Has there ever been a French queen, who spoke fluent English?
Later President Hollande will have a working lunch with David Cameron.
Note that Hollande’s name is always flagged up by the default spell check.
Jeff Tarango Gets It Right
I sent this in an e-mail to a friend last night, after hearing Jeff Tarango on BBC Radio 5.
Jeff Tarango has made an interesting point about the match tomorrow.
Murray played his semi-final with the roof open and Federer played with it closed. Tarango also said Federer may prefer the roof closed as it’s more like an indoor court. So the weather could have a big effect on the match.
I watched the match today, and both players were very different after the rain break, when the roof was closed.
There could be a case for not changing the position of the roof, once a match starts.
So how do the Welsh handle their roof at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff? This extract from a report here, shows it not all plain sailing.
The French coach’s stance led Wales coach Warren Gatland to demand Six Nations power-brokers change tournament rules and back Wales over the issue of the roof.
As it stands, both participating teams have to be in agreement for the roof to be closed.
If they cannot agree, it stays open unless there are exceptional weather conditions and the match is in danger of being postponed.
“If it’s our stadium and we have the ability to open and close the roof, then maybe we should be the team that decides,” said Gatland.
“I would hate to think that on Saturday, if it is pouring down with rain and we’ve got the chance to close the roof that we don’t.
But the row was because it interfered with a French player-tracking system, that seems to be a bit close to the rules to me.
It strikes me though that the fairest system, is that in any sport, if the roof is closed at the start it should stay closed and vice-versa.
The Old Farts Get It Right
Wimbledon has shown that with a bit of planning, you can avoid the problems of the weather. In 1993, they unveiled a plan to create a venue fit for the 21st century. Now nearly twenty years later, they have completed that plan. Here’s a simplified version of the plan from Wikipedia.
Stage one (1994–1997) of the plan was completed for the 1997 championships and involved building in Aorangi Park the new No. 1 Court, a broadcast centre, two extra grass courts and a tunnel under the hill linking Church Road and Somerset Road.
Stage two (1997–2009) involved the removal of the old No. 1 Court complex to make way for the new Millennium Building, providing extensive facilities for the players, press, officials and members, and the extension of the West Stand of the Centre Court with 728 extra seats.
Stage three (2000–2011) has been completed with the construction of an entrance building, club staff housing, museum, bank and ticket office.
A new retractable roof was built in time for the 2009 championships, marking the first time in the tournament’s history that rain did not stop play for a lengthy time on Centre Court.
A new 4000-seat No. 2 Court was built on the site of the old No. 13 Court in time for the 2009 Championships.
A new 2000-seat No. 3 Court was built on the site of the old No. 2 Court and the old No. 3 Court.
It just shows if you take your care at the planning stage and get everyone on your side, you get a better outcome. The only mistake, they seem to have made was underestimate the success of the roof on Centre Court and not put in provision for a roof on No. 1 Court. I suspect though, that engineers are seeing No. 1 Court as their next challenge.
It is interesting to compare Wimbledon’s progress with the dithering the French have been through about expanding or relocating, the venue for the French Open.
Wimbledon have also had the last laugh, in that they will be hosting the tennis at the London Olympics. What odds can I get on a Federer-Murray final? After all one will be hoping to prolong a winning streak and the other will be looking for revenge.
French Target Foreign Property Owners
I’m so glad that C and I sold our house in Antibes in the South of France some fifteen years ago. I think I’d be paying a very large sum of French taxes now, if Francois Hollande gets his plans to tax foreign property owners implemented. It’s all here on the BBC.
Aurevoir Minitel
The French are pulling the plug on Minitel. Read about it here.
I’ve met people, who liked it, so it wasn’t that much of a disaster, but obviously, it’s been killed by the World Wide Web.
Those Sneaky Frenchies
They nearly got Black Caviar, which appeared to be caught out by the stiff six furlongs and perhaps a bit of not-quite-up-to-standard jockeyship. Every good trainer, I’ve ever met, has always said, that you always use the best local jockey available outside of the UK. Unless of course the normal jockey is one of the top class or has experience of the track. In this race, Thierry Jarnet brought Moonlight Cloud right through or behind the field to get to the rail. That isn’t a tactic on a round course, but is quite common on a straight one. How many races are run on straight courses in Australia? I’ve looked it up and think it’s only one straight course at Flemington. Here, most tracks have a six furlong straight course.
My Worries About Black Caviar
They are not major worries, but the confidence behind Black Caviar in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes is unprecedented and when that happens, things tend occasionally to go wrong.
I once had a runner, Debach Delight, start at odds of 22-1 odds-on in a race at Ayr. Everybody was confident and she did win by over a dozen lengths, but you always worry about something. After all, she might have stumbled out of the stalls and dropped the pilot.
They have shown pictures of Black Caviar and they all showed her running on a round course. Now Ascot is straight. So I have to ask, if she has ever run in a race on a straight course with fifteen runners? It can tend to unsettle a horse, the first time they do it.
The last worry, is that the two horses after her in the betting are French-trained. They always seem to get the odd surprise winner in England. This week so far we’ve had a few Irish winners, one from Hong Kong and one for Germany, but none from the French.
The Anonymous Widower 