The Amgen Tour of California began today with a prologue (short) time trial in the poverty-ridden hamlet of Palo Alto.
If you have the ability to multi-task during the work day this week, check out the live video stream on the Amgen Tour of California web site. “Fantastic” Joe Silva and Frankie Andreu are providing the play by play.
If you use a Mac, it looks like Safari runs the video stream, Firefox does not.
If you need a fix of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin, Versus is also covering the event.
Meanwhile, across the pond the latest pro cycling soap opera goes something like this:
-During last year’s season, several Team Astana members were caught doping. Team Astana’s sponsors are described as “a consortium of Kazakh government agencies and businesses.” Sounds just a bit like a post-Soviet oligarchy, doesn’t it?
-Post-Soviet oligarchy or not, Astana cleaned house and brought on many former team Discovery riders not the least of whom include last year’s Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, American Levi Leipheimer who finished third, and former Discovery coach Johan Bruneel.
-Regardless of the fact that Astana cleaned house, they are currently denied spots in the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France.
While it’s laudable that the organizers of these races (think they) are doing their part to keep the sport clean, the decision-making process is less than transparent and look like senseless acts of randomness.
During today’s race coverage, Frankie and Tom suggested that these decisions could change.
Assuming the Astana exclusions hold, I’m heavily lobbying the Redmond Cycling Club to invite Levi to this year’s RAMROD, since he’ll probably be looking for something to do in July.
