Tag: tour de france

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Stage 12: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

A few stages ago, when Manuel Beltran got tossed out of the Tour, Phil portentously talked about how the Tour was going on “with head held high” (as our noble cyclists pursue the goal of Clean Riding). Another rider was tossed out of the Tour after a positive drug test yesterday. And today, one of the most excitiing riders of this year’s race, Riccardo Ricco, was driven away in police custody after testing positive for a form of EPO. Do such developments stay Portentous Phil from his sermonizing? Not hardly. Here’s Phil at the end of today’s stage, won by another sensational young rider, Mark Cavendish:

“It’s been a sad day for cycling with the disqualification of another rider who still believes they can beat the system. Well, we’ve got news for you, Riccardo Ricco, the system is getting better tthan you guys, and we are catching you up.”

Beyond the slightly “1984”-ish tone of this pronouncement–I’m thinking of the movie versions of the Orwell story, with tele-screen announcers urging viewers to turn in wrongdoers–this is a breathtaking statement. Riders like Ricco–lionized on the same broadcast just days ago by Phil and company–cannot beat the system. And who is the system? Phil says it’s him and all his friends: the scolding Bob Roll, the clucking Paul Sherwen, and the attendant host of cycling purity nannies.

Sorry, mates: By watching this broadcast, I did not sign up to be part of a crusade against an evil I’m not sure is really evil And even if the evil is there, the fervent and hyper-moral missionary campaign Versus and Phil are promoting are more distasteful to me than the ills they say they’re trying to cure.

End of rant.

In other Phil quote news:

Describing a chase that gains time, then loses it: “The yo-yo of the elastic has not snapped yet.”

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Stage 10: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

Due to an actual standard work-day schedule on Monday, we missed our Tour TV-watching appointment. In watching the replay, the one featuring Bob Roll and the Craig Hummer, we weren’t taken with very much of what we heard; and of course we were separated, for one race day, from our muse, Phil. That’s all by way of saying we have an honorary Phil quote today from Christian Vande Velde, who for a moment anyway captured the true spirit of Phil:

Hand in hand: “First of all, I’ve looked after myself from day one, from December on. And that’s been more a psychological change for me than anything else. I’ve changed my preparation, what I’m thinking I can do, what I possibly can do, and also physically. I think it goes kind of hand in hand with myself.”

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Stage 9: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

Lovely lumps: “There’s the mountains now. There’s no way out, only over the top, and the riders know it. It’s an awful long detour if you want to go around these big lumps of … of granite down here in the south of France.”

The divine cyclomedy: “The tempo is spreading the sprinters at the moment down the hills. Very shortly the middle-distance climbers will find themselves in trouble because the pace at the front of the pure climbers, the men who are now in their playground. This is their garden, and they’re going to take revenge over the week of purgatory.”

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Stage 8: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

We found the bad apple: “(Team) Liquigas in disgrace after the disqualification of Manuel Beltran found positive after taking EPO. He is out of the Tour de France, but the rest of the riders go on, with their heads held high.”

(I’m extra-special curious to hear what Phil has to say when the next positive test comes in. EPO, for the uninitiated, is erythropoieitin, a substance that can enhance the blood’s ability carry oxygen.)

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Stage 7: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

Watching the stage winner, Luis-Leon Sanchez of Caisse d’Epargne, on the podium: “It doesn’t look like he’s been anywhere today. I reckon he’s come straight from breakfast right on to the podium. Look at those eyes–sharp as a nut.”

And also: David Millar describing how his bid to break away collapsed: “We just ripped it to pieces that first half of the race, but then unfortunately (Lampre’s Damiano) Cunego crashed and everyone started chasing me and it went a bit … a bit pear shaped.”

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The ‘Last Kilometer’ Rule

When yellow jersey Stefan Schumacher fell near the end of Stage 6 yesterday, the Versus announcers (Liggett and Sherwen) started talking about the special rules that apply for a stage finish. Liggett noted that it looked like Schumacher would fall back in the standings, but that “it depends on how the judges read the last-kilometer rule.” Sherwen responded, “I’ve got a funny feeling, Phil, we may well see they will not apply the kilometer rule on a climb like this, because this is a mountain-top finish.”

The rule–Article 20 in the Tour de France regulations–applies to the last three kilometers of most Tour stages. It is designed to prevent riders from being penalized if they get caught up in the mayhem of a bunch finish (or suffer some other accident) at the end of the race. The rule (in full below) provides that if a rider falls or flats or has his bike break in the last three kilometers, he will be awarded the same time as the group he was in when the problem occurred (the only catch: he need to be able to cross the finish line to be credited that time).

But there are a couple wrinkles. The rule does not apply to individual time trials. And Sherwen was right: the 2008 version of the rules (96-page PDF file in French with English translation) specify that the rule does not apply to the four stages this year (the sixth–yesterday’s– the 10th, 15th, and 17th) that have summit finishes. Article 20 does seem to give some room for interpretation: at one point, it allows for “exceptional cases” to be ruled upon by the Tour’s committee of stewards. But the article also seems to flatly state that it doesn’t apply to the specified stages.

Here’s the English text of the rule:

Article 20

Stage finishes are signalled by a “red flame” (flamme rouge) hanging from the inflatable arch located one kilometre from the finishing line. In the event that the finishing portal is absent, the finish is signalled by a black and white chequered flag waved by a race official.

In the event that a rider or riders suffer a fall, puncture or mechanical incident in the last 3 kilometres and such an incident is duly recognised, the rider or riders involved are credited with the same finishing time of the rider or riders they were with at the time of the incident. The are attributed this ranking only upon crossing the finish line. If after a fall, it is impossible for a rider to cross the finish line, he is given the ranking ranking of last in stage.

For exceptional cases, the decision taken by the stewards committee is final.

This measure does not apply to:

Finishes of the 4th and 20th stages, which are individual time trials.

Summit finishes of the 6th, 10th, 15th, and 17th stages.

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Stage 6: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

Today’s quote is a nonquote. As the racers neared the steep climb leading to the stage finish in a place called Super-Besse, two riders were about 15 seconds off the front. One was Christian Vande Velde, an American from Team Garmin-Chipotle, the other a rider from the French team Saunier Duval, Leonardo Piepoli. The last climb began with about 1.5 kilometers to go, and Liggett sung the praises of the American. “This could be a brilliant move by Christian Vande Velde, and it could have hit them at the right time.” Phil explained how the spectators had to walk to the upper reaches of the hill. “And they’re seeing one of only four Americans in the Tour de France turn on the style in the race for the next yellow jersey,” he said.

Meantime, what’s the camera showing the folks at home?

The front of the peloton was surging forward as several of the stage favorites, including the perpetually mispronounced Alejandro Valverde, made their bid for victory. The front of the group swirled past Vande Velde and instantly dropped him.

What did Phil have to say about that?

Well, nothing, actually. He opined that the wearer of the yellow jersey, Germany’s Stefan Schumacher, wasn’t reacting. The TV picture almost instantaneously contradicted him, as you could see the yellow jersey in the bunch surging past the spent Vande Velde. In fact, Phil never mentioned Vande Velde’s name again until a couple minutes after the finish, when he thought he might have recognized him crossing the line. (And in fact, he missed that call, too: Vande Velde had finished just 23 seconds after the stage winner, Riccardo Ricco of Saunier Duval.)

That’s it? That’s all that brilliant move came to?

[Later: Versus’s Paul Sherwen observed after the end of the stage that Piepoli’s attack, made along with Vande Velde, was probably meant to put pressure on the lead group and help Ricco. It wasn’t until Versus’s Robbie Ventura tracked down Vande Velde in the finishing area that Vande Velde explained that his surge, too, was meant to help a teammate: David Millar. But Millar never made a move–a fact that Liggett and Sherwen never remarked–and wound up finishing half a minute behind Vande Velde and 51 seconds behind the winner.

We should give Phil a break here. He’s an entertainer, not a reporter. He’s a fan, not an expert. He manages to convey the excitement of the moment even when he’s not quite sure what’s happening or why. There–we said something nice about him.]

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Stage 5: Your Phil Liggett Quotes of the Day

Play-by-play moment: Phil’s crowning moment in the finish of Stage 5 was to correctly call the winner as the sprinters crossed the line–Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia–then to immediately change his mind: “Cavendish is there! And he’s done it! It’s Ciolek! It’s Ciolek on the line! It wasn’t Cavendish! Gerald Ciolek has taken it.” And there matters stayed for the next minute or so as Phil and Paul Sherwen watched replays: “Well, that was a tremendous finish. Gerald Ciolek is also here to win for himself, as he has now proved. He is also a lead-out man for Mark Cavendish. That was a superb … Look at the man at the back there, the champion of France, desperately, desperately close [after 220 kilometers or so in a breakaway] … and … that looks like Mark Cavendish to me, Paul. Well, I thought he was Cavendish first of all, I reversed to Ciolek, and I’m coming back. Mark Cavendish has won the stage for Great Britain. Absolutely superb, he delivered.”

That wasn’t quite as bad as mistaking which team just scored the deciding touchdown in a football game, but it was close.

Remove the carrots from the fruit basket: [As the peloton closed to within 30 seconds of a three-man break about nine kilometers from the finish of Stage 5] “Any second now the referee will ask for the removal of all vehicles behind those three riders to give them one last chance to hold off the peloton, remove all the carrots from the fruit basket up there, and leave the race to try and chase them down. The riders at the back of course just want to get to Châteauroux and enjoy the shower today.”



Some call them gams: “Somewhere, the champion of France has found some power in those pistons we call legs.”

Tour wedgie: “Nineteen seconds lead, just inside 4 kilometers from the finish, and Team Columbia have got hold of the Tour de France by the scruff of the racing shorts.”

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Phil Lisps; We Investigate

So, the greater re:Cycling community is closing in on the sources of Phil Liggett’s seemingly strange pronunciation of Alejandro Valverde’s first name. When Phil says it, it comes out “Alethandro.” As commenters to the earlier post on this crucial matter remarked, Castilian Spanish does in fact turn some “s” and “z” sounds into “th.” A leading theory, therefore, is that Phil thinks Alejandro is really Alessandro–he does sometimes say “Alessandro Valverde”–and converts the (erroneous) “ss” into “th.”

That habit would account for his turning the middle name of Juan Mauricio Soler into “Mauritheeo,” too.

Maybe. We will stipulate that the matter of pronouncing “cross-language” proper names for broadcast is one fraught with confusion, difficulty, and the clash of inalterably correct opinions. re:Cycling has personal knowledge of a Bay Area radio outlet where editors have decided that the San Joaquin Valley town of Los Banos–LOSS BANN-ose in the local American argot–ought to be pronounced LOHSS BAHN-yohz, a perhaps “authentic” Spanish pronunciation. The only problem comes when you call the city hall or the newspaper in town–both English-speaking institutions–and are universally greeted with the American version of the name. And never mind the fact that the station in question broadcasts not in Spanish but in English. As I said, the subject vibrates with the potential for debate.

So who can say Phil is wrong with his Alethandros and Maurithios?

We can.

First, note that Phil is probably misapplying his ounce of knowledge about native pronunciation in the former case and perhaps in the latter one, too.

Second, note that it’s commonplace to adopt a modified form of foreign names when they’re spoken in another language. So even if Alejandro were pronounced Alethandro in a major dialect of Spanish, it would be more appropriate for an English-language broadcaster to adopt a version that conforms to a standard translation. In English, Alejandro — the j sounding like an h — conforms to such a standard. (Here’s another example, French to English: Say the name of the capital of France. If you’re a native English speaker, we’ll bet you a shrinking U.S. dollar you did not unconsciously say “Pa-ree.”)

Third, note that no one else on the air with him shares his lisping habit with these names. His fellow broadcasters are conforming to the standard.

And fourth, consider one piece of evidence from Spain. We had the idea that maybe the website of the Spanish paper El Pais would have video clips from the Tour in which the names of Valverde and Soler might be pronounced by a real live Spanish person. We were not disappointed. The video clip from Stage 1 features Valverde, and there’s no question about how it’s pronounced: in the non-lisping, non-Phil way. The video clip from Stage 2 mention’s Soler’s crash. The evidence is less clear, but give it a listen. To our impaired American ears, it sounds like the voiceover says Maurishio or Mauricio, but definitely not Mauritheeo.

With that, we certainly hope the matter can be put to rest. Alas, we know Phil won’t let it be.

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Stage 4: Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day

Phil on watching the Stage 4 time trial: This is the one day you don’t want to be out on the road, you want to be behind your television screen because we can explain everything.

–Versus also explained that the length of today’s stage, 29 kilometers, is equivalent to the distance from Mesquite, Texas, to Dallas. Oh, yeah–that helps!

–Versus’s chirpy Robbie Ventura rode along with Garmin-Chipotle team director Jonathan Vaughters to watch the ride of David Millar. After Millar went through the second time check 14 seconds behind the leader. Ventura asked, “Jonathan, how’s this going for ya?” Vaughters let out a long breath and replied, “Fuck, man.” As Vaughters urged Millar on, Ventura reported, “You can feel the excitement in this car.”

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