It's over.

The Tour de France has finished, and another glorious July of cycle racing is over.

This year's tour was fantastic, the yellow jersey was swopped about 6 times or more, and you didn't know who was going to win until the last two days.

Highlights of the tour were:
Valverde's early win and lead, promising so much after his perfomance in the Dauphine Liberé.
Mark Cavendish's four sprint wins, even if he did drop out at the Alps. he's no climber and there was no point killing himself weeks before the Olympics.
Successful anti-doping controls. The italian Ricco was on the latest generation EPO and still got caught.
Cadel Evans fighting off the CSC team in the Alps, strung out to dry by his team Silence-Lotto
Some spectacular crashes on the hair-raising descents
Some excellent young riders showing promice for the future.
French riders in most of the breakaways and some french stage wins.

A great champion in Carlos Sastre. he took the risks when he had to, on the stage when he had to, and was supported by some brilliant team riding by CSC.
Sastre has a fan club in Aalter, a town near Gent, that has now grown to nearly 450 members. This fan club raises money for a children's cancer charity. Whatever money they raised, Sastre would match it. He's not even belgian, and the kids probably don't even know who he is. (That's about to change)

Check out his website. He seems like a nice guy.

It's in the stars

I make no apologies for my opnion of astrology and astrologers. It's bullshit and they are either deluded or hucksters. Or both.

imagine my surprise and disappointment to find that the French football team manager Raymond Domenech is a keen astrologer and uses astrology to help choose players for the team.

Domenech has admitted to distrusting Scorpios, such as Robert Pirès. This led to the choosing of Vikash Dhorasoo who played an important part in qualifying but not in the finals. He later fell out with Dhorasoo after he made a behind the scenes film called "Substitute".His decision to leave out FC Barcelona star Ludovic Giuly in favour of Franck Ribéry, and subsequent refusal to explain that decision, left many French players and fans mystified. [1]. Domenech chose Pascal Chimbonda, a low-profile player with no international experience, for the squad. Domenech's selection for the France's World Cup squad was further criticised when he publicly announced that Fabien Barthez would start ahead of Lyon goalkeeper Grégory Coupet. This decision was met with derision in the French press and also led to Coupet walking out of the national squad before the tournament, though he was later to return. [2] His exclusion of A.S Roma back bone defender, Philippe Mexès, has also raised a few eyebrowes. Mexès, named Hope of the year in 2000 and being an all star defender for A.S Roma since his arrival to the team, still has to participate in a competitive senior tournament under Domenech.

from Wikipedia

His mistrust of Scorpios means he would never have rated Maradonna (Born October 30)