“Joseba Beloki Crashes Out in Stage 9!”

Since the Team Time Trials in stage four, I"ve been trying to ignore the Tour de France during the day. That means avoiding all sources of sports news, including web sites and the radio. It's too distracting, I could easily waste my entire morning watching the race.

OLN replays the morning's live coverage at 9:00 PM, so by avoiding the whole thing during the day I go into it blind.

While, Steve Davis almost blew it for me today. :-) This afternoon he sent me an email and asked if I'd seen the hilights of today's stage. He referred to it as "incredible." He didn't really say why it was incredible, thankfully, but he provided a link to some coverage. I was strong, I didn't look.

Man, was he right. Most of the day was much like stage 8: lots of attacks from the contenders, as Lance Armstrong doesn't yet seem to be in prime condition. Paul and Phil, the commentators, like to talk about Jan Ulrich being Lance's prime contender, but so far he hasn't been a problem... everybody else has.

Joseba Beloki was probably the strongest, best challenger for a final win. In the last couple of kilometers, Joseba and Lance were chasing down the last breakaway. They're going down a steep hill, riding into the sun. The tar is very hot, melting, and this has loosened the stones in the road. Lance is right behind Beloki, and a switchback is coming up.

Joseba applies his brakes. A little too much brakes, remember they're flying at close to 50 MPH on soft tar with loose stone. The back end of the bike starts to slide, hard, out from under him. The tire pops, then comes entirely off the wheel!

Joseba goes down hard, very hard, bike and body tangled up together and rolling over and around each other.

Don't forget, though, that Lance was just a couple bike lengths behind. With no time to think, he ditches. Er, sort of. He goes off the road, into a field. Remember the switchback that was just ahead? Lance rides straight through the field back to the road at the other side of the switchback! There's a dropoff, though, so he gets off his bike and runs back out onto the road. He's ahead of the group again, but on foot. Seconds later he's back on the bike, and one of the other riders -- Tyler Hamilton! -- gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he goes by.

Lucky man. Fast reflexes.

Nasty, nasty crash.

Joseba Beloki broke his femur, and banged up his elbow very badly. They replayed him lying on the side of the road, just before being taken away to the hospital, and he was bellowing and crying out in pain. That was one nasty crash.

Tyler Hamilton broke his collar bone in a crash in stage one, but that super-human freak is still in the race, and he's in fifth place! Nobody, though, not even Tyler, could keep riding with a badly broken leg. Riding at that level with a broken collarbone is virtually impossible, but riding with a broken leg? Not going to happen. Joseba's out, and that dramatically changes the race. It's too bad.

In the end, Lance came in fourth for the day, but he's still in first place over all. I'd like to see Lance win, it would be disappointing for him not to finish on top, but if he's going to lose I hope it's to Tyler.

(Yes, Steve, I'm taping the whole thing for you, including the pre-race show.)