Sunday, July 27, 2014

Big Legs! (And the Tour de France)

Rick, who was my coach-for-a-day during last year's Reach the Beach bike ride, told me he used to coach a college women's crew team. At first he would encourage them by shouting, "Big legs!" Then one of them pointed out that as women they didn't really want to have big legs. I totally understood.

But as I watched the finish of Stage 21 today, and the winners on the podium at this year's Tour de France, what struck me were their strong legs. (No, I don't have any kind of fetish about this.) Of course, that's how they won, how they kept going and going, apparently about 40 mph in the final laps around the Champs Elysee, after all they'd been through: Big legs.

I haven't seen any video on YouTube yet of the winners on the podium, but will add them when I find them. Meanwhile, these guys are real heroes to me, as are the ones who crashed at various times and got right back on their bikes to keep riding.

I couldn't help but cheer for Marcel Kittel as he surged forward to win this final stage. Big legs, indeed! But I realize that even with his physical training, his mental toughness was just as important, or maybe even more important.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/10994251/Tour-de-France-2014-stage-21-Marcel-Kittel-wins-on-Champs-Elysees-as-Vincenzo-Nibali-is-crowned-champion.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/10993231/Tour-de-France-2014-Vincenzo-Nibali-worth-his-place-in-history.html

This photo came with the note: "Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali will be a worthy winner of the Tour de France and, from his early days in the sport, he has always been anti-doping." 


1 comment:

  1. Great post! If you go to the "Le Tour de France" site on facebook, you will find videos snippets of the race. I don't know if you can download those onto this site or not though.

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