You Can Be Competative Without Being A Douchebag

Stage 14 on paper looked like it would be a day for the sprinters and everyone expected a Cav/Hushovd/Farrar shoot out at the finish line. As with every stage the breakaway went and everyone expected them to be chased down, however something interesting happend. Big George Hincapie was away in the break and at one point was the Virtual Leader on the road. Everyone who follow cycling knows the career of George and how he was a faithful lieutenant to Lance on all 7 of his Tour wins. It look at the 10km mark like there was no way that the peleton was going to close the gap and George would be in Yellow. Then a funny thing happened. Garmin-Slipstream put three guys on the front for no real reason to do tempo in the last few k's of the race. For Garmin there was no tactical advantage nor was there a strategic mission for them to do work on the front of the peleton, other than to keep George from getting Yellow. Ag2r had already done all the work they were able to do and had shredded their team in the process. The gap still was at 6+ minutes when they pulled off the front so they weren't going to pull the time back on their own. Columbia still had intentions of leading out Cav for the 13th place points but were holding back as much as possible to protect George's lead. I don't know who made the call for Garmin to get on the front (Matt White or Jonathan Vaughters) but it was a douchy move to put guys on the front for no reason. I have lost alot of respect for Garmin who are the "we do it right we do it clean" boys. Well guess what...you didn't do it right today.

Mountains start tomorrow!