Thomas Voeckler Respect!

I know we're all waiting for Mr Wiggins to claim the first British Tour de France victory, but had to post a 'Respect' thread for Thomas Voeckler!

His stage 16 win yesterday was an epic, I have total respect and admiration for anyone who can climb and descend like that :shock:

Respect

Thomas is a legend!
He's one of my favourite, if not my favourite rider of the last few years as he thinks for himself and races with passion.
Even my nearly two year old was watching yesterday afternoon calling out 'Go Thomas, Go Thomas'
( dont know where he could of picked that up from)
My wife got home later and said ' whats he saying?'
I told her she should watch the highlights, sure enough she soon worked it out.
I really like the way he says that most of the times these moves dont work out, but if you dont have a try, you wont know.
Much respect also for his honour the previous winter when he stuck with Bernadou when he could have taken one of the lucrative offers on the table. A man of honour.
Yesterdays ride was the hardest day on the tour so even by Tommy's standards it was pretty epic. I just really hope he can keep hold of the climbers jersey today as theres only 3 pionts difference between 1st and 2nd but theres 77 pionts up for grabs today, the last day of climbers pionts.
I also liked the Eurosports commentaters comment that his facial muscles were in lactic overload by the start of the last climb

Jamie

Aye- proper old school gurn and grind fest......reminded me of Chiapucci's stage into Sestriere. (which was 20 years ago....jesus!)

A French man who is prepared to fight

..and picking up more points in the KoM today.

Obvoiusly, it goes agains the grain to root for a Frenchy, but I guess you can't resist his gutsy persona.

A complete K0M contrast to the other French line-scabbing crack-whore, and "housewives favourite", Richard Virenque.

I've always liked his attitude and flair, I was very impressed with his ride to claim the polka dot jersey. I also liked his comment about how he knew the yellow jersey wasn't an option this year so he just swapped his focus to the mountains instead - pure class!

Mark.