Still we got in a pretty nice ride. West was a problem but once again creative use of downhills provided us with a route that had only a couple of really ugly bits. We also had a couple of uphills where speaking here only for myself, I felt quite strong.
The other problem today was that despite lots and lots of visible blue we seemed to be riding always under one of the clouds. Here is one of the moments when a bit of sun appeared.
France 1:1 England.
The English seemed a bit tame. They played without Rooney (suspended), Lampard (injured) and Ferdinand (don't know). The English were mostly passive and allowed France to have most of the ball possession, playing for all the world like Italy looking for a draw. France featured three exciting attackers (Ribéry, Benzema and Nasri). It remains to be seen how well the side will hold up when the opposition applies pressure.
One interesting aspect of the game was that no one who plays his club football for Manchester City had ever previously scored in the European Championship. Both goals today were scored by Man City footballers, Joleon Lescott for England and Samir Nasri for France. Nasri's game tying goal was double Man City as he scored against England and Man City keeper Joe Hart.
The first round is complete and except for missing most of Croatia v. Ireland yesterday because of a power outage I have seen almost all of the action.
Group A: I expect Russia and Poland to advance.
Group B: Netherlands is still a contender but must next play Germany, a failure to win will be doom for the Orange. I still expect to see Germany and Netherlands advance but Germany and the winner of Denmark v. Portugal is the most likely if Netherlands cannot get the victory against Deutschland. My favorite TV line so far is the game announcer saying that the Netherlands is so flat that you can watch your dog run away . . . for five miles.
Group C: Spain and Italy
Group D: England seems suspect. The most compelling result so far is the 2 goal effort by 35 year old Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko to propel the second host team past Sweden. France next plays Ukraine and I suspect that Ukraine needs to repeat today's result to be in position to advance. The final group round game for the Ukrainians will be against an English side welcoming Rooney back from suspension. This group is still completely up for grabs with probably only Sweden facing impossible odds. Ukraine and France.
The network of the Olympics today dealt another blow of disrespect to tennis, choosing to air the continuation of the men's finals on an obscure cable outlet making it unavailable live to many of the people who probably wanted to watch. I have seen tennis the past two weeks on The Tennis Channel (the most and the best coverage), ESPN2 and NBC. Today at the appointed hour I checked all three of those outlets and could not find the tennis. It was on NBC Sports (the former Versus and OLN). They took the very historic final and put it someplace where most of us couldn't find it.
2 comments:
Good call on the stretch. Windy days provide all the challenge you need without adding extra miles. The wind seems to have arrived here today, too. Howling might be an exaggeration, but it is early.
Ride on.
I was looking for the tennis too. Even searched the web to try to find a--gasp--TV schedule!! No luck. Had to google later in the day to see how it turned out. Stupid and annoying.
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