Life Around Tour de France – Stage 3
Sports Travel / Tourism
This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a quizmaster by profession and a passionate traveller
Doubting thomases, Lance is rising…
The 3rd Stage is set from Marseille to a tourist town of La Grand Motte. Marseille is a very scenic place with lots of history going back to the 11th century. There are many a Old castle which are being caught beautifully by the race team on television which is
being beamed worldwide.
We left Nice after 2 days of stay there and we already feel like having been here for a long time., maybe the old part of the town that we stayed in made us feel so!!
The next place of halt for us is Montpellier, a city with over 1,000 years in history and where many a historic happenings have taken place over the centuries. The trip to Montpellier was eventful in the fact that we had the first delay in a departure!! In India, generally we all are on IST – Indian Stretchable Time, and so ingrained is that into our systems that we don’t think anything about a train / flight delayed by 30-60 minutes. Whenever we had guests from Europe and we had to drop them at the station we always found them fidgety when it was 20 minutes to departure and we were still home!! Now, being here and finding that departure at 6.02 am means 6.02 am is making us fidgety!!
The city has the old part which is with buildings which are 300-400 years old and where there are no 4 wheelers allowed and the new part which is a planned city planned by a leading architect from Spain. The new part is where we are staying and when we reached the place we did not believe that’s the area, as it looked like a huge govt. complex!! The empty space around the buildings are remarkable and a distinct identity in itself.
Yesterday we were witness to a sight which regular tour followers have seen many times, a rider being treated by the tour doctor for an injury on his knee which he sustained in a fall. The doctor first checked for any damage & then cleaned and bandaged the leg – hanging out from a car while the rider was pedaling away at over 40km per hour!!!
The town of La Grand-Motte according to localities here is one with a population of just around 8,000 inhabitants, but has over 2 million people visiting every year!! This is touristic town if ever there was one and the buildings majority of them are hotels. Anything that one touches there is expensive, so all we had there was what we had packed from Montpellier.
The old chestnut “whenever the going gets tough, the tough gets going” was proved right by none other than the Team Astana’s Lance Armstrong. In a race where his team has not officially designated him as the leader, Armstrong just blew the race apart with his keen insight.
With around 30 kms remaining British Columbia Team taking the very high crosswinds into consideration upped the ante suddenly at the front of the peleton and within a few minutes they were able to make a gap. A few lucky riders jumped along with them and in that was Armstrong with two of his team mates – Popovych & Zubeldia (Popovych was with Armstrong in his old Discovery team in 2005) Once the crack developed, we saw the pure genius of Armstrong in motion when after a distance we saw him sit up and with a flick of his right arm ask his team mates to pound the rhythm even harder as the British Columbia team was flagging. That one moment of experience was enough to let everyone on tour know that Armstrong is here to stay & race till the finish. After a long time the world saw Armstrong ride right at the front and work along with the other teams. And the leader board changed.
For the record – the Race course was 196 kms and Mark Cavendish of British Columbia Team – right now the best sprinter in the world – won the Stage once again, his 6th Stage win & his second in this tour. Fabian Cancellera of Saxo Bank Team retained the Yellow Jersey. Lance Armstrong jumped to the 3rd spot overall.
In the interview after the race Armstrong said, “I never subscribed to the theory that there is only team leader in Team Astana. I have 7 Tour de France titles and that must count for something. I aim to finish the race at Paris so don’t count me out.”
The Race tomorrow is a team trial from city centre at Montpellier & finishes 39 kms away in the city of Montpellier itself, next to the Yves-du-Manoir stadium. This is the only team stage in the Tour de France this year and theoretically we can have Lance Armstrong back in the Yellow Jersey once again, if his team does well. And that ladies & gentlemen is the only topic the entire French media is talking of now….
Au revoir…