Sunday, March 16, 2008

Paris-Nice Stage 7: LL Cool

Thank heavens for Sputnik. Eleven-inch, crystal clear, live video. What a concept. Fantastic pictures on a sparkling day by the water, and another thrilling race on the road. Once again it was an attack on the descent that was the big move - kids, don't try this at home! Luis Leon Sanchez defied the laws of physics in his unbelievably fast and skillful descent, I believe my mouth was actually hanging open. Crazy, crazy stuff, but it got him to the lead pack, and then shot him out from them for the stage win, just barely hanging on as a couple of riders were bridging back up to him. I don't know how he held on to those corners, he was about sideways in some of them.

I'm so glad he pulled it out, because I love that kind of initiative in the closing kilometers. The lead group was something like seven seconds ahead of the peloton, and they're all looking at each other and getting resigned to being caught. Good on Sanchez for not having any of that and continuing his pursuit for the win and moving into top 5 on GC. Didn't quite get enough to take the white jersey from Robert Gesink, but Sanchez looked plenty happy at the finish.

Bravo to Davide Rebellin for holding on to his slim lead and finally getting the top spot on the podium, after coming so close before. Nice win for the old guys! Yaroslav Popovych holds on to third, glad to see him in a podium spot. He poured on the gas just at the end, presumably to keep Gesink from sneaking by him, well done. Trent Lowe flew the Slipstream colors there in the break and on the final climb, nice to see after the tough week he's had. Bobby Julich again in the break, showing nice form in his home away from home.

Just watched again on Versus, and got to see that crash by Gesink and Nocentini, Gesink almost going over the wall into who knows what, yikes! I think young Gesink is going to be in a world of hurt tomorrow, but his good showing here will be a nice reward. Looking forward to Milan-San Remo next weekend, and the chance to see more Tirreno-Adriatico. (Hooray for Fabian Cancellara and Dave Zabriskie today!) My brief, international nightmare with Cycling.tv is soon to be over; they don't seem able to handle Macs very well, so I'm canceling already. It would be nice if they could get it together over there, it's such a great idea and thus far such horrible execution.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

WE prifde ourselves atCycling TV abouit getting Windows Media to play live and VOD on our Mac users. The FAQs are very helpful.

Out technology is all US based and we're upgrading in June to a beautiful new application. There are simply inherant issueds with compatibility but we can make it work. As each Mac has differentconfigurations usually there is some combination of player / browser that worls best for each users. The bestraces areabout to come....please ask for help...we will give it.

Julie said...

Simon, thanks for checking in, but your FAQs are not very helpful, they're out of date. It took me two days of searching elsewhere on the web to find out about the additional streaming utility I had to add. I might've been able to find out about it on the Innertube, if I ever could've gotten into the Innertube, apparently another thing that doesn't work with Macs.

I did ask for help and got the stock response that you're working on it and please be patient. This was about getting stuff to play at all, so the proper response would've been to tell me about the utility. I only got that answer from support after I asked to cancel, and after I had spent countless hours finding it on my own.

Define "make it work". If you mean the choppy, garbled images and intermittent sound, I don't consider that working. When you can deliver the same quality as I got on Sputnik, to everyone that wants it, when they want it, let me know.