Like Shakespeare on a bike

There is beauty in bike racing. Two-time U.S. champion John Eustice captures it in his daily recaps of the Tour de France.

The team took full control with 2.5-km to go when Ramon Sinkeldam strung out the field into a single line, snaking through sweeping turns of the approach to the finish. Once spent, Jonas Rinckaert took over, there was a bit of a lull that allowed the other teams to come up before he re-accelerated to 1-km to go opening up the Mathieu van der Poel show. VdP started sprinting, completely asphyxiating his rival lead-out men, dropping Philipsen off on the left side at 300-meters to the line. Mark Cavendish, the last winner in Bordeaux in 2010, exploded down the right side of the road at 70-kph, the fastest recorded speed of the day.  Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay, in the chance of his career, was on Cav’s wheel. Philipsen dove right, aiming for the Manx Missile’s slipstream. Girmay, and here’s the rub, was letting a gap open between himself and Cav, he was being dropped in full sprint – which was all Philipsen needed. He forced himself into the gap, Girmay was a bit off balance and bounced a bit on the side boards, but it was already over for him, the Eritrean had lost his moment. Philipsen and his team had ridden the sprint from the front. The Belgian won because he has the best team and he is the fastest sprinter. There was no fault committed: this was professional road sprinting at its best.