Rest Day Review: Tour de France 2019.....a British perspective!

Hey!
So we are once again at that time of the year and the best cyclists in the world are pounding French roads for our entertainment.  And let's be fair, the first 9 days have been a veritable feast!  I don't know about you, but any pre-formed ideas I had about how the Tour would pan out this year have not come close to predicting the real life drama!

In fact, even before the race began it seemed to have been turned upside down.  The loss of @chrisfroome during a training ride at the Dauphine upset the apple cart before the fruit was even ripe on the tree!  Adam Yates getting sick and calling it a day rubbed salt into British wounds, which were then just beginning to heal when along came G's crash at the Tour de Suisse which firmly kicked the disabled cart down the bank and into touch!  It seemed that the God's of Cycling Chaos were laughing at us; taunting us Brits into believing that 2019 was to be the end of the British grand tour domination!

The outrageous form of Julian Alaphilippe, the phenomenal rise of Wout van Aert, a wonderfully resurgent Thibaut Pinot and a second Dauphine triumph for the dominant Jakob Fugulsang all seemed to be sending the message loud and clear.

Britain.....this ain't gonna be your year!

But we're made of stern stuff in ol' Blighty and are not likely to be shoved aside so easily!

And so.....here we are!  First rest day after 9 days of incredible racing and, whilst it may be the width of the Rhone Valley away from where I thought we'd be at this time, the GC has rather a familiar look to it; one that I never expected it to have to be sure, but one that I am, as a proud (slow!) cycling Brit and chest thumping patriot, am very pleased about.

G is on the rise and sits 2nd; Adam Yates is up to 8th and Froomey is out of hospital!  My confidence of yet another G success...or should it be 'a G up?'..... is once more high!  If Yatesy can attack successfully in the coming mountain stages as well we may well be looking at a two Brit podium once again!  Which would be wholly unexpected but very, very welcome, I must say!  I just hope that the crash when Mike Woods brought G down is the extent of his mishaps this year otherwise I may well be eating some serious humble pie in 2 weeks time!

That said I must tip my chapeau to some amazing non-British performers thus far.  The stand out performance in my opinion has been that of Julian Alaphilippe, who has proven himself by far the best all round road cyclist in the world and must surely now be considered a serious threat for overall victory!  There would be no more popular winner I'm sure and I wish him all the very best for the days to come.

Alaphilippe, in the yellow jersey, follows Nairo Quintana & Geraint Thomas with Thibaut Pinot in the foreground.

Next, the amazing, up and coming talent of Wout van Aert who is surely the natural successor to the whirlwind that is Peter Sagan.  And finally, a huge tip of the hat to the guy who has picked the baton of the Tour's iron man from the now retired Jens Voigt and that is Thomas de Gendt, who doesn't know the meaning of the term 'to have an easy day!'

But without each and every rider we would have no race and without the race what's the point of having the Summer!!!  So thank you one and all.....ride hard, stay safe and keep doing what you're doing.

Sports Personality of the Year n' all that jazz!

Hiya!
As usual for us UK sports fans the end of the year highlight is always the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year awards.  A slightly different format from Auntie this year saw Geraint Thomas win the major award ahead of his rivals on the night, Lewis Hamilton, Harry Kane, Dina Asher-Smith, Jimmy Anderson and Lizzie Yarnold!  For me there were several highlights during the programme including Geraint's faltering but charming speech that saw him tell how 'he'd worked under Dave B (Brailsford) for many years' before immediately saying, 'oh, that sounds a bit dodgy, dun'it?' and the Helen Rollason award winner Billy Monger whose courage, determination and positivity in the face of extreme adversity is nothing less than mind blowing!

All in all I thought it was a lovely evening and it's inspired me to rattle off my own (slightly more limited) sporting highlights of 2018.

So, here we go......first up Cycling

British tour cycling had literally the perfect year!  Three Grand Tours saw three British winners!  It doesn't get any better than that, and as a mega cycling fan and horribly wobbly cyclist myself I truly appreciate the dedication, bravery, stamina and sheer bloody mindedness it must take to win any grand tour!  My best bits begin at the Giro, perhaps in British eyes the lesser of the three tours simply by virtue of a distinct lack of TV coverage on mainstream channels (Hint!  Hint!  Wake up ITV!), but the reality is surely very different!  I think the Giro is always the least predictable of the tours so perhaps it was inevitable that it would throw up its usual glut of surprises.  Simon Yates stormed into the lead and until the final few days looked every inch the runaway winner with the big pre-race favourite, Chris Froome, seeming to struggle in his wake.  That was until stage 19 which saw Froomey turn the race completely on its head with (I think) the single best sporting performance of the year, bar none, when he went balls deep with a solo breakaway some 70kms and 3 mountain climbs from the finish that saw him break the entire field, Simon Yates included, to go from 5th to 1st in a monumental day that I will never, ever forget!  Chapeau Froomey!  More of the same next year please!

At the Tour, as we know, Cardiff boy Geraint took the honours winning several stages along the way including the monster - 'Whoa!  Alpe D'Huez, man' - with an overall performance of supreme consistency that saw him crowned Tour Champion for the first time!  Fantastic performance boyo!

And finally at the Vuelta a Espagna Simon Yates, well rested and wiser by a country mile after his efforts at the Giro, came out on top and was, for my money, head and shoulders above than all his rivals and never looked seriously troubled at any point!

And all this British success has left me salivating at the prospects for next years tours where surely more British champs beckon.  But who?  And where will they clash?  Throwing Tom Dumoulin, a hopefully fully fit Thibaut Pineau and Primoz Roglic into the mix, along with the explosive talents of Julian Alaphilippe and Peter Sagan, I think 2019 could well be a year to savour!

At the World Champs success eluded the Brits with the road race going to 38 year old Alejandro Valverde - maybe its just me, but I've never warmed to the guy despite many bravura performances over the years largely because (and alright yes, I know cycling has had its fair share of problems on the drugs front, including some Brits!) he has never really shown any remorse for being caught out!  That said at 38 to win the Worlds is something else!

The TT saw Aussie Rohan Denis take the rainbow jersey and well deserved too!

On the track there were too many highlights too mention but for me the return of Laura Kenny and husband Jason after having their first child was right up there!

The saddest note of the year was the horrific injury suffered by German sprinter extraordinaire Kristina Vogel when she was left paralysed following a collision with a car whilst out training.  Once again the courage and fortitude she demonstrated in interviews afterwards was astounding and I wish her all the very best as she continues to recover.

In Formula One the plaudits go to Lewis Hamilton after yet another stand out year.  He was the best of the top drivers once again despite being in what was not the best car!  Five World Championships and his desire and competitive edge seem as sharp and as honed now as it was when he won his first title in 2008!  Here's to number 6 Lewis!

My enjoyment of the tennis year was blunted slightly by Andy Murray's hip injury which I hope is a thing of the past now as we look forward to seeing him back in action in January down under!  As a little aside I had a dream the other night where I was walking into the stadium in Melbourne with Andy - we were best buds or something! - for the final of the Aussie Open!!  Do I have prescient tendencies?  We shall see soon enough!  But I like to think so!

However, it was an absolute joy to the oldies swinging back into action again as Rog, Rafa and Novak once again dominated!  But the next generation are arriving like a high speed train so I think they'll all need to be looking over their shoulders in 2019!

In the womens game it was another unpredictable, topsy turvy year that saw no one woman (in Serena's absence) dominating which made it for me one of the most exciting in a long time!  To top that next year I would just love to see our Jo Konta stepping up again and playing with much more consistency and confidence to get herself back in the top 10 again! The key to Jo's success is her wicked serve which, when it's operating well, is a fearsome weapon.  This year it has been largely unused and as her serve stuttered to threaten the rest of her game dropped in its intensity and her ranking plumetted as a result!  We need you back at your awesome best Jo!  You can do it!  We believe in you!

As a Man United fan the football year has had its highs and its lows!  The highest being without doubt England's wonderful World Cup journey which reunited the fans with the national team in a way that (as a very old man) I can never recall!  It was momentous, staggering, stupendous.....and I want more!!!  Gareth Southgate is a magician!  I am just too young to remember 1966 (I was only 5) and so for me this is the first time I have seen an England team playing to the best of their ability and not wilting beneath the weight of pulling on an England shirt!!  And that I believe is a wholly a consequence of Southgate's positivity and meticulous planning!  Judging by results since the World Cup things are only going to get better as well!  I just hope and pray that one day soon (and before I hear the final whistle!) that I witness an England team winning a tournament!  That's not too much to ask, is it?

But at United things go from average to below average and then down once again!  Sorry guys, but Jose was never the right man for the job and he must go before United join the realms of the also rans and see their great heritage disappear off down the street never to be seen again!  The board need to be more adventurous in their choice of manager - my choice was Unai Emery but that was before Jose and before Arsenal - and really push the boat out to bring the good times back!  It's dismal to see Alex Ferguson's thrilling legacy being squandered by Mourinho who has clearly past his sell by date and by players who seem happy to take the money without fully committing to the shirt!  Come on United!  Sort it out!

The swimming year was a relatively quiet one and more a stepping stone on the road to Tokyo!  That said, there were still many amazing performances at the Euros with, as always, the stand out being a world record by a (below par??) Adam Peaty!  My word, that guy is a world beater and no mistake!  Looking forward to the next corner stone in their Olympic preparations being cemented into place at next years Worlds!  Come on team GB!!!

And finally in athletics it was also a quiet-ish year as well.  The highlights being Mo Farah's debut marathon win at Boston in a UK record and lovely Dina's wins at the Euros!  She is infectious in her enthusiasm for her running and, after some bad injury problems, its wonderful to see her develop into the world class sprinter we've always known she could be!

Again there were many outstanding performances at the Euros, such as Laura Muir, but the real test for Dina and the rest will come at next years Worlds and I can't wait!

So, there you have it!  In brief, a little run through of my sporting highlights!  Bring on 2019 because I've got a feeling.........!