July 18/03 8:56 am - NBA at the TDF

Posted by Editoress on 07/18/03
 

Chris Redden is following the Tour, he has been sending in reports of his TDF experience.

Today the NBA came to the Tour

Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs showed up today to show HIS support for Lance and the TDF. Today was not nearly the zoo that it was yesterday as I don,t think the fans know as much about basketball as they do the movies.

Tony , who is a native of France and grew up watching the Tour has come back for a second year in a row to support the race. He was given a HUGE special edition bicycle Look Carbon as part of his visit. It has his Spurs #9 on it as well. He will also ride in the car behind Lance to see him ride to victory. (So that is all it takes to get in a team car - become a NBA star). Tony seems to be enjoying the event from the VIP area so far and I even saw him checking out the new Sony Playstation Game version of the Tour de France. Now you too can play along at home thanks to Sony!

As far as the time trial goes I watched Floyd Landis go off a little while ago and now I am off to see George Hincapie go. Both George and Floyd stopped by to say Hi to Tony Parker earlier on. You can take the American out of the states but they still love their USA.

It is again in the high thirties and I don't know how the racers will handle the aero helmets today. Postal has one cool thing in their warm up area. It is a fan and mister system to keep the riders extra cool when they warm up. They are always cutting edge!