Floyd wins it!!!

Floyd Landis with a really amazing performance on the mountain stage 17 and with a fairly strong performance in the individual time trail on stage 19 won the tour de France. He won over second placed Oscar Pireiro by 57 seconds and over 3rd placed Andreas Kloden by a minute and 29 seconds. Carlos Sastre was relegated to 4th.

Kloden also had a really good time trail and pushed Sastre down to 4th place to take the podium finish. But Oscar Pereiro gave a performance of a lifetime to cling on to second place. It looked as if Kloden would end up 2nd but Pereiro held on.

Overall a good tour because it remained open ended for so long and so many new people had a chance to shine. But since people like Lance Armstrong, Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso were missing the whole tour lacked in experience and acted as school kids on certain stages. Take the fact of Oscar Pereiro gaining 30 minutes in one stage and then Floyd Landis losing 10 minutes on one day and gaining 8 of them back on the next! The Peloton lacked leadership in such situations and acted a little immaturely in letting these things happen. If the big guns had been there they would have never let such things happen...

In closing, Floyd (who hails from San Diego and has an Amish upbringing) completed Le Tour '06 in 89 hours 39 minutes and 30 seconds covering 3657.1 kilometers (including two mountain ranges, the Pyrenees and the Alps) at an average speed of 40.784!!!

TDF 2006

The tour has crossed the Alps and in those 3 days the race turned upside over its head and then came back straight up again!

On Tuesday on the legendary L'Alpe-D'Huez climb the top contenders separated themselves. All of them made it through without much damage and Floyd Landis regained his overall lead. But on the next day on Wednesday Floyd Landis cracked. On the La Toussuire climb Floyd gave up 10 minutes. And Oscar Pereiro had the yellow jersey. Floyd and his team Phonak will be ruing the day when they let Oscar Pereiro, who was 28 minutes behind at one point, gain 30 minutes on a flat stage. The 10 minute loss put Floyd roughly about 8 minutes back from Pereiro.

In any case on the next mountain stage Floyd redeemed himself. He broke out around the 50 kilometer mark and rode all by himself through about 5 climbs and about 150 kilometers. He won the stage and pulled off one of the most amazing rides. He showed real courage and managed to pull back almost all of the 8 minutes. Floyd had managed to do the unthinkable.

Now only the individual time trial (TT) remains (on Saturday) as a stage where the lead can change. Going into the time trial the podium places are almost decided. Only Andreas Kloden who is about 2 and a half minutes behind has an outside chance to upset the top 3 riders who are: Oscar Pereiro (leader), Carlos Sastre (12 seconds behind) and Floyd Landis (30 seconds behind).

Floyd is good at TTs. The other 2 are not that great but on that day anything might happen. It is going to be a very exciting day...

This tour has been really topsy turvy. There have been 7 wears of the Maillot Jaune (means the yellow jersey, 'my-oh jhohn') and it has all been terribly exciting :)

Tell me baby...

...what's your story.
Where you come from,
And where you wanna go this time...

I caught the video of this funky song "Tell me baby" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on VH1. In tune with the lyrics pasted above, the video has everyday people just dancing without a care, playing the band's instruments and generally freaking out. I want to be in this video it looks like a lot of fun! :)

23 Days In July

That’s how long the tour de France lasts. I am reading the book "23 Days in July" these days while the tour is going on. The book outlines Lance Armstrong's 2004 tour win and it has been fun reading it alongside the current tour.

So stage 11 through the Pyrenees did throw up a clear winner, Floyd Landis (Phonak). Floyd became the overall leader of the tour leading the other contenders by more than a minute. Such a lead would have been enough for Lance Armstrong to win the whole tour but Floyd's team Phonak allowed a lesser known rider who was some 28 minutes behind Floyd to make up 30 minutes on Stage 13. This allowed Oscar Pereiro (Illes Balears) to take the overall lead by about a minute and a half.

Pereiro is expected to relinquish the lead in the mountains but still it’s so dangerous to give up 30 minutes to anyone. Lance describes how once an unknown rider gave him a real scare like this once. The thing is that when you are the overall leader and wear the yellow jersey it is really hard on the team. The team of the wearer of the yellow jersey has to do the entire pace setting defend against attacks and lead from the front, I think Phonak was just preserving its riders but 30 minutes is huge...Every Second Counts!!!

Today is a rest day before the tour now heads for the Alps...really grueling stages coming up including the famous L'Alpe-D'Huez stage which ends with a 13.8 kilometer climb to the finish at a gradient of 7.9% (category H climb)...

Le Tour

The Tour de France has one of its toughest stages today. 5 HUGE climbs, one category H (!!) and 4 category 1 (!!!!!!!) climbs. Today is stage 11.

Km 75 - Col du Tourmalet - 18.3 km climb to 7.7 % - H Category
Km 105 - Col d'Aspin - 13.0 km climb to 5 % - 1 Category
Km 136 - Col e Peyresourde - 9.7 km climb to 6.8 % - 1 Category
Km 161 - Col du Portillon - 7.9 km climb to 7.9 % - 1 Category
Km 204.5 - Puerto de Beret - 13.0 km climb to 5.5 % - 1 Category

The tour is really open this time because Lance Armstrong retired and the top 3 riders were disqualified because their names came up in a doping allegation and their respective teams had to pull them out. 10 stages are done and still there is no clear contender. The current overall leader is Cyril Dessel from the AG2R team.

Yesterday was the first tough mountain stage (nothing like today's though) and still it did not throw up any clear contenders. The contenders Floyd Landis (Phonak), Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile), Christophe Moreau (AG2R) and some others are still there off the leader by 3-4 minutes. The biggest casualty so far is probably Iban Mayo (Euskatel - Euskadi) who is down and out sitting in 153rd position 24 minutes away from the leader.

George Hincapie who was by Lance Armstrong's side through all his 7 Tour wins is surprisingly 6 minutes down from the leader. The discovery team does not have a clear leader and that is a little scary.

But after today's stage I expect the picture to clear up significantly. Not only should it bring the contenders for the tour to the top, it will probably also decide the respective team leaders for teams like Discovery and T-Mobile who have a few riders near the top but not a clear team leader...

allofmp3

All of MP3

This is the site I have been using for about a year for downloading legal mp3s. It was recommended to me and I have been hooked. This site is a pay site and a legal way of downloading mp3s. The site is run out of Russia where they have local contracts with the Russian offices of the big music labels.

I uploaded 10$s in my account using my local Citibank Visa credit card. No fraud has happened, no overcharging, the deductions for the songs I have downloaded have been very fair and accurate. No complaints till now.

The site charges about 2 cents per MB of download. So for a 5 minute song it will cost you about 9-10 cents => 4 to 5 Rupees. This is if you encode the mp3 at 128kbps. Higher encoding bit rates (all the way up to 320kbps) are available and since that increases the file size the cost of the song also goes up...

Their collection is huge. They almost always have all the latest album releases in all genres including soundtracks, western classical etc etc. And the best part is it is legal. They allow you to sample the first 90 seconds of all their songs...

A full album assuming it is 80 minutes (not many are, btw, but just taking a max of what will fit on an audio cd) through this website will cost you about 1.5$s at 128kbs. 60-65 bucks, not bad, right!. At 192kbps the full 80 minute album will cost you a little more than 2$s, say 100Rs...

I have been using it mainly to replace songs that I have lost over the years. You can also use it to find songs that you heard somewhere and keep nagging you but never found it anywhere. The site is also good if you want only a few songs and don't really care for the rest of the album. Another example, :) I heard a couple of good tunes in a movie Hotel Rwanda, I searched the movie on their site sampled the album, found out which ones they were and just added them to my basket. Download rates (speed) are pretty good (4-5MB will take a little more than a minute)...

So now the world cup is over. There were these low, stupid and disgusting moments. There were these moments when all of us, great couch coaches that we are, were left scratching our heads as to what was going on the field with the players and coaches. We can argue how players play so well for their clubs but fail for their countries. BTW that to me is obvious given that they play for their club and the teammates there all year round, day in and day out but only start really getting ready for the world cup finals maybe only a month before. Some playing for foreign clubs return to their country only for that month. So let's not debate that. Actually I agree the bad moments in this world cup were probably in the majority but forget all that, this world cup did have its gems, it had a great changing of guards and it had its brilliant moments. I for one am going to look at what went well and not at how some of the players, coaches and teams, well, sucked and screwed up. You expected them to do well given their caliber and club record and past performance??? Well, too bad they dashed your hopes :)

This world cup as usual threw up its hard working and dedicated players like Pirlo (ITA), Gerrard (ENG), Cannavaro (ITA), Kaka (BRA), Cafu (BRA) etc who turn up to play every match for the love of the game and not worry about the money from the club vs the country. Zidane played well in the 2nd phase but his name is sadly missing due to the head butting incident but ya, he was good. It has thrown up loads of new talented players like Lahm (GER), obviously Messi (ARG), Tevez (ARG), Schweinsteiger (GER), Rebery (FRA), Podolski (GER), Van Persie (NED) etc. These are the players that I will follow and look forward to seeing them in action. Who cares about the C. Ronaldos etc etc. Not interested in them! :)

The names I listed above are not complete, there were players from less powerful football-ing nations who showed lot of speed, talent and grit. Maybe they played so well because they had nothing to lose, but yes lots of them were really good...

Now on to the Le Tour. You want a sport where everyone gives 100% all the time and that too, most of the times, for someone else? Go see the Tour de France...
Do you know who was the most popular sports figure in Germany in 2003? Michael Schumacher? Nope...Jan Ulrich, the leader of the T-Mobile cycling team. Sad that he was pulled out just before the start of this tour due to a doping allegation. Hope he clears his name...

The Azzurri win the world cup!!!
It was a hard fought game with Italy dominating the first half and the French coming back strongly in the second.

In the first half France got an early penalty and from what I saw it clearly looked like simulation. Malouda went down in the Italian penalty box and really there was no contact. The referee was a little far away and probably didn't see. Zidane took the cheekiest of penalties and scored with the ball luckily deflecting in after hitting the cross bar...
Italy struck back, Materazzi got redemption 13 minutes later as he headed in a perfect curving corner kick from Pirlo for a deserved goal. Materazzi had brought down Malouda earlier and conceded that penalty and maybe that’s why after scoring the goal he had both his hands raised and fingers pointed towards the heavens as a thank you gesture...

In the second half it was Buffon's two awesome saves, one off Zidane's powerful header and one off a lighting quick strike by Henry that kept Italy in the game.

Going into extra time the now infamous head gore incident happened. Zidane just lost it. It was totally uncalled for and very unsportsmanlike. He made full contact and knocked the player down. He was obviously sent off... At what point do you go from playing a sport to acting like a deranged person and assaulting a fellow player??? Sad ending to his illustrious international career…

Going into penalties, players from both the sides were inch perfect in their shots and both the goalkeepers couldn't get to anything. The only miss came from Trezeguet's, who had earlier replaced Henry for France, penalty which hit the cross bar and bounced out. So it ended 5-4 in Italy's favour. In my opinion Cannavaro was the man of the match. He tirelessly defended for the whole 120 minutes hardly putting a foot wrong and kept Zidane, Henry and Rebery at bay. Awesome effort and display…

Then the celebrations started and it included Camoranesi getting his long hair chopped to half its length probably due to a bet/wager...

I felt it was a deserving win for Italy for the way they played this whole world cup...

Italy vs France final hmmm...

The second semi-final between Portugal vs France just got over. France won 1-0 getting a goal through a penalty but Portugal played really well and had some really good chances. The best chance came from the free kick by C. Ronaldo. it was one of the best I have ever seen, the vertical dip the ball took was some sight, Barthez in the French goal had no idea and he just couldn't handle it. The ball bounced just off his chest and Figo had a free header from the rebound off Barthez but ended up heading it high.
Portugal kept trying and had a lot of near chances but failed to convert any. The commentators kept saying that they needed two forwards but Scolari never added the additional striker. In the dying minutes Portugal including their goalkeeper came up all the way into the French penalty box and there were quite a few nervous moments especially those final 2 corners. I felt Portugal deserved a goal but they lacked the finishing...

None of my 4 top teams made it to the final...at least Italy who was in the second list has made it :) France has peaked at the right time in this tournament. Zidane has taken opposing players to school on the field in the last 3 matches but my pick is still Italy to beat them in the finals. The only concern is the lack of a world class striker up front for the Italians...

Everything has its ups and downs and the football WC'06 had its major down yesterday.
The much awaited match between Portugal and Netherlands was expected to be a nail biting affair expected to go all the way to the penalties. A matchup of two teams so equal that almost everyone was having trouble picking the winner. Unfortunately the match turned out to be "bruiser" with regular fights breaking out. 16 yellow cards 4 players sent off, Luis Figo the captain and senior player of Portugal head butting a Dutch player. Any time there was a foul there would be a huddle with heated arguments between players and then suddenly players would fly out of the huddle...

Portual won 1-0 but they paid a heavy price and may be without their top 3 playes Figo, Deco and C Ronaldo when they meet England (#$%@#$ England have really gotten lucky) next. At full strength Portugal would have beaten England fairly easily but now England have the upper hand...

I played football :)))
God knows after how long I stepped on to a proper playing field (not court, mind you) and played for nearly 2 hours with a fairly serious set of players :)))

German Engineering...
That's how I would describe Germany's 3-nil victory over Ecuador. Engineered as well as their Mercs or BMWs...
Obviously with this result I take away the "Dark Horse" label from Ecuador...

Couple of funny incidents:
- During the Croatia vs Japan match, Croatia's player Srna who had already missed a penalty and in the 4-5 corner kicks he had taken he had stupidly curled 3-4 of them over the side lines (rendering them "out" from the time he had kicked them), so at the 6th or so corner the commentator goes dryly "Mr Srna, if you want to have a professional career after the world cup, you better not curl this one over side line". :)))

- In the England vs Sweden match, after England had made about 10 or so dry, and harmless passes in the backfield the Swedish crowd started boo'ing them and the commentator goes "The Swedish crowd boo'ing England. England maybe think they are Argentina" obviously referencing to the fabulous 24 pass goal by Argentina. :)))

Here is how I think the teams are stacking up...

The top 4 (in descending order):
- Argentina
- Germany
- Brazil
- Spain

Teams that are waiting at the front gate:
- Netherlands
- Italy

Teams that are knocking on the back door (trying to sneak in when everyone is looking away):
- Portugal

Raauuuuul!!!

Thats the sound of the pressure being released from the pressure cooker situation in the Spain vs Tunisia match when Raul scored a goal to equalize 1-1. Tunisia scored early in the 8th minute and it took until the 71st minute of the match for Spain to strike back. Spain played an amazingly controlled and patient game never deviating from their style and kept bulding the pressure until it all paid off with Raul's goal...

Since then they have scored again and are now winning 2-1...

This is the 32nd match of the 2006 world cup. Half the world cup is over :(((

In vein with the Da Vinci Code here is a riddle...

The orb that can't be handled by anyone except by one in the rear and was used to escape to victory

Got it??

It’s a football!!! Escape to Victory

So after watching endless hours of the 2006 football world cup matches here are some thoughts…

- Argentina is my pick to win the whole thing and it is the only team that can challenge the Brazilian team. Messi is all that he is made out to be and he is still 18 (till 24th June).

- Czech Republic who I thought would make to the last 4 have done themselves in with their performance against Ghana. Kudos to Ghana. Their group "The group of death" (Italy, Ghana, USA and Czech) is down to the wire on 22nd June. Do not miss those matches. Italy vs Czech and Ghana vs USA.

- Asian teams will probably not shine like the last world cup. Rooting for Korea, they will have to play really well to beat France next. Saudi Arabia really lucked out against Tunisia.

Awesome matches
- Australia vs Japan. 3-1. Australia score 3 goals in the last 8 minutes after being down 0-1.

- Argentina vs Serbia & Montenegro. 6-0. School is in session :)

- Czech vs USA. 3-0. Total football by Nedved and Rosicky.

Bad matches
- Anything with England :). Seriously.

- Italy vs USA. The players are not to blame the referee just got it all wrong. The 2 red cards to the USA were totally out of whack.

Dark horses
- Ecuador

More later...

Rwanda Rwanda...

...can anybody hear our cries, can't you hear us calling you...Wyclef Jean sings in "Million Voices" from the movie "Hotel Rwanda".

Over the weekend I got some "education" on the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. A friend gave me the movie "Hotel Rwanda" and a documentary called "Ghosts of Rwanda" with a warning "Hey they are disturbing". I had had some exposure to various civil wars in Africa and the horror of their killing methods. Wilbur Smith in his books describes some of the horrific ways in which people are killed in these African wars. In the mid 90's I also remember the news of the tens of thousands bodies floating over a lake into neighbouring African countries. Anyway, so I watched the movies...

In about hundred days following the assassination of Rawandan President on April 6th 1994 about 800,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtered by militant Hutu groups. One of the groups called themselves the Interahamwe ("coming together") and Machetes were used as the main weapon for the ethnic cleansing.

Despite pre warnings sent by both the Red Cross and the UN peacekeepers the world didn't react until it was too late. No one in the world, the UN, the powerful countries, no one reacted. Everyone just sat and watched about a million people being hacked to death.

UN had a decent sized peace keeping force but at the start itself Belgium pulled out most of its troops and the commander of the UN peacekeepers Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire was then left with some 450 ill equipped troops to guard the whole country. He had requested for only about 2000 peacekeepers to handle the situation. 80 countries in the UN were approached but none of them agreed to lend any troops. And to think a few thousand troops could have saved maybe half a million human beings. It was a gut wrenching ordeal to see Dallaire as an individual take full responsibility and say:

"I was the commander and my mission failed and hundreds of thousands of people died and that I can't find any solace in statements like "I did my best". A commander can't use that as a reference in any operation. He succedes or he fails and then he stands by...to be accused of and to be held accountable for...and my mission failed".

The UN tied Dallaire's hands by telling him that he should not take any pre-emptive action and "avoid armed conflict". Before the killings started he had requested Kofi Annan, who was the heading the peace keeping department at that time, for a strike at the arms cache of the militia and was told not to do so saying "you do not have enough data".

The Clinton administration still suffering from the setbacks of peacekeeping at Mogadishu, Somalia also did not do anything to prevent or control this tragedy. (On a quick side note "Black Hawk Down" is an awesome movie about the Mogadishu incident, one of my favorites). The Clinton administration made excuses and played with words like "We don't know yet if this is a Genocide. Genocide has a legal meaning to it and we don't know if we can say that". Only later in 2003 Bill Clinton would accept that "...I will always regret about the Rwandan thing...".

Here are some Wikipedia links:
Rwandan Genocide
Genocide
Genocide in history
Rwanda