Tour de France: Team Time Trial Tumult
Watching the team time trials in the 4th stage for the second time, I can’t help but think that a CSC teammate intentionally nicked Dave Zabriskie’s back tire at around the 1.5 kilometer mark so that he would lose the yellow jersey. Zabriskie is not the leader of Team CSC; that would be Ivan Basso and there is no way they would let Zabriskie in his first year with the team continue to lead in the general classification for long. Call me cynical, but this is a sport filled with intrigue and détente, and the team mainstays probably thought it was time for Dave to take a back seat.
Am I jumping to conclusions here? Any readers in tune with the politics of international cycling? It is strange to me that out of the nearly 200 riders, only Zabriskie wiped out. Zabriskie fell to 9th in the general classification, and Basso is right with him at 10th.
Meanwhile, Team Discovery rode the fastest team time trial in tour history, garnering the yellow jersey for Lance Armstrong.
