The Tour of Flanders is my favorite race of the season. Steve and I have been planning for months to watch the race together and eat Belgian waffles. The waffle/race event trumped Easter dinner at my mom’s house, it was so important.
I love wikipedia, because you can find almost anything you want to know there. You can even find things you didn’t want to know there. Like yesterday morning when I was looking at the wiki entry on Tour of Flanders to get a better appreciation of the race history and course. At the end of the article is a list of race winners, which I scrolled through, noting all the Belgian flags next to the names.
The last two flags I expected would be Belgian, with Stijn Devolder having won in 2008 and 2009. But the last flag was Swiss. Which caught my eye. And then I saw the name next to it: Fabian Cancellara. And the year: 2010.
And then I remembered, just because race coverage started at 3:00 p.m. local time doesn’t mean the outcome wasn’t known at 10:00 a.m. local time. Duh. Thanks a lot eager beaver wikipedia nerd.
I had to pretend for the first hour of the broadcast that I didn’t know the outcome. The second hour, though, it was clear that we were just watching Fabu ride away with it. Because when he made his move, it was that decisive. What would it be like to have that kind of motor?
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That's a bummer. The whole suspense element must have been gone... Not cool!
ReplyDeleteBummer for your brother. I can't stand watching a recorded sports event with someone that knows the result. Unless truly skilled at acting or they don't say anything at all, they give it away somehow.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely fantastic race though. It is a tough call in my mind between Flanders and Paris Roubaix as best spring classic or even best race of the year.
But the race was still a lot of fun to watch, and the Belgian waffles were very delicious.
ReplyDeleteJZ, his brother didn't know, so there was no spoiled surprise.
Race was still fun to watch, and Steve was none the wiser. I mostly just stayed quiet, though it was obvious who would win once Fabu made his move.
ReplyDeleteParis-Roubaix is the bigger name, but Flanders with all the climbs is the more exciting event. It's possible that P-R can be a more exciting race in a given year, but year over year, I'd choose Flanders if I had to choose one. Thankfully I don't.