It's one week into the Tour “Day” France, and probably a good time to resurrect the highlights of Bob Roll's comments at the Seattle Bike Show last February.
Roll, himself among the first US cyclists to compete in Europe, predicted that Lance Armstrong would win the Tour de France. This was before Armstrong announced that the 2005 Tour would be his last professional race.
“If he's ready and willing to do it, he'll kill everybody in the Tour. When he's ready, we've seen what kind of damage he can do.”
Who had the best chance of beating Armstrong? Not Jan Ullrich, Roll said, before launching into his “Terminator” impersonation. He said Team CSC's Ivan Basso had the best chance, although he probably wouldn't be successful. “He's too nice.”
Basso currently sits in 7th place, 1:26 behind Armstrong who is in third place.
The OLN commentator was here to publicize his new book, Bobke II, and talk to folks attending the show sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club. His appearance may have been a little grizzled, but people came to hear him talk, not discuss the way he looked. (If you've been watching OLN, you'll see that he's since found a razor and comb.)
Where did his “Tour DAY France” pronounciation come from?
“I have my reasons. It's to get back at the French for being so cruel when we used to race back there,” he said. When he and his parched teammates would stop at a restaurant and ask for water, the waiters always acted like they couldn't understand what they were asking for and didn't serve them. “We decided to get back at the French by massacring their language every chance we'd get.”
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