TDS Stage 9 & Overall - Leipheimer Leapfrogs Cunego

One of my first memories of watching cycling on the telly, was the Tour de France back in 1989. I'm not quite sure what happened in between, but I remember Pedro Delgado turned up late for the prologue. And I remember the final time trial, where American upstart Greg Lemond stole the race away from Laurent Fignon by 7 seconds. History seemed to be repeating itself today, as another American - Levi Leipheimer - stole the win away from race leader Damiano Cunego by a mere 4 seconds.

Cunego lost over two minutes to Leipheimer over the 32.1km, and as he only had a 1:59 lead, it was all over for the Italian. You can't help feel sorry for Cunego, but them's the breaks. He must have been gutted, but he did manage a smile for the cameras.

Among the other underachievers on the stage was Frank Schleck, who lost as bunch of time, as did his bro Andy. Those boys will have to do better in a few weeks if they want to be up there in the TDF. And it seems I'm not alone in thinking the tactics of Leopard Trek were a bit unsportsmanlike when they stitched up Bauke Mollema yesterday. At least they got the stage win with Spartacus.

Now we've got the real race out of the way, we can get onto the important business of the Fantasy Tour de Suisse. And although I don't want to gloat, I feel I must point out that I won the mini league. The Asparagus Tips looked dangerous for a while, bu the loss of Soler hit them hard. Out of the Tour de Pance old hands, Toblerdrome were next ahead of the Eiger Kings, (who I assume are named in honor of short-lived Leeds band Eiger). And in the fight for last place the Drunk riders just managed to finish above the ChanBots, congratulations!

So I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my riders for getting me so many points, and of course my sponsors.

There's no more stages to tell you about, but as I'm sure you are aware, the Tour de France will be starting in about 3 weeks time. The Bile Beans will be there for sure and there'll be a Tour de Pance mini league for sure. There may even be some updates between now and then, after all there's some National Championships coming up. Thanks for playing, and I'll see you at the TDF.