The final race of the 2012 Velominati Super Prestige season is upon us. It’s not the most inspiring race, supposedly a race for the sprinters. The long straight final run in to the finish line begs for a mass sprint. It should be called Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais-Tours. The route is 235.5 km of small rollers through the French countryside. There is not a categorized climb on it.
Captain Fuck Around is eleven points behind @san tonio. If the captain stops fucking around like he did with last week’s Lombardia winning pick @g’phant could be mincing around Wellington in a different apron from the one he usually wears. @xyxax, a few points behind el captaine, is swirling his hands over his crystal ball in his Gotham lair, his flying monkeys grinning and hopping with excitement over his shoulder. @ san tonio is standing tall, a few decent choices and he will win this whole thing but this is a tough race to call. It’s October, who has any gas in the tank? This could be a true sprint finish with remnants of lead out trains, or won from a small break or something freakish like a climber holding off the whole chasing peloton.
Did France’s ex-golden boy get off the EPO after the Festina affair? Did he win Paris-Tours by holding off the whole field on a day-long break with Jackie Durand riding on bread and water? For me it was easily his greatest win. It was much better than all his king of the mountain wins with their self-righteous finish line salutes to his own cheating ass. He was a climber, he was supposed to win mountain stages. But to end up being the lone fox chased by the whole pack, holding them off and winning this so called sprinters race, it was beautiful, Voight-esque. It’s how a race should be won. This win actually made me like him again, a little bit. Sprinters get enough wins already. They are over-rated.
Here is a provisional start list, good luck and good picking, no Delgados, please.
Below is a barely adequate video of the 2001 race and Virenque’s win, all in French and too many shots of him in his sweater. But it is short.
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View Comments
@Deakus
I scored a SMOKING two points as I had good old Marcato for fourth place with Degenkolb in second place. Yeah, think I need to start working for the betting sites.
@Deakus
At least (as in, didn't look close enough to be sure nobody else did) @Adrian and @r00tdown had Degenkolb in fourth.
@San Tonio
Grats on the VSP win. Damn fine end to the season over the past few races.
Time for a ride! 8 degrees C out with 60% chance of showers. Might be a Rule 9 day depending if the rain comes.
@ San Tonio it ain't over till....
@Deakus
Yup - I had Terpstra - nearly had him in the right place too if it hadn't been for those pesky kids
I picked the 3 & 4 slots correctly. Not exactly something to be over the moon about, but anyway.
Shoot, pulled off a top 10 last year, guess now that I've slipped I have a long winter of training ahead of me...I need that shop apron!
We're running a bit behind with mapping the picks; I'm pulling myself an espresso and will have them mapped and the results posted in a moment.
Pretty exciting finale!
@Blah
Thank You very much Sir
@Tobin
yeah, it is over
@Ron
Well, it was better than most. You took the win this time around!
@all
I always love seeing a sprinter try to bridge up solo ala Cipo at Gent VVevelgem. Respect to Degenkolb.
Ron takes the win over Trobs and Adrian in an unusually small field.
[vsp_results id="20560"]
[/vsp_results]
For the overall VSP, @San Tonio takes the season-long Velominati Super Prestige and wins the personalized ship apron. His margin of 11 points over @G'Phant and 13 over @xyxax shows how much each of the events matter in the overall.
Thanks to everyone for participating and helping to make this an exciting game; also a special thanks to those of you who helped uncover and resolve defects in the system.
[vsp_gc year=2012/]