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Quote(s) of the Day
For anyone who didn't watch the Tour De France, Floyd Landis won. He's American. He's a former teammate, rival and current friend to Lance Armstrong. He put on perhaps the single-most impressive stage performance in modern tour history by coming back from one awful stage performance (where he basically took himself out of contention to win), to winning the following stage and erasing an eight minute deficit (from that awful performance), on the way to winning the Tour. He's the only American to win the Tour besides Armstrong and Greg LeMond.
Whether you're a fan of the Tour or not (I only started watching it last year), the article below is a good read for anyone. The few quotes below could easily be separated, but they all happen to fall in the same spot in the article:
Or later, when Z-Man mentions an athlete who spoke about "giving 110 percent." "Well, why not 112 percent?" Landis inquires, eyes widening with burning incredulity. "Why not 500 percent or 1,300 percent or 38 billion percent? I mean, if he can crank it up beyond 100 percent, why not? What's stopping him, exactly?"
Other items on the Landis list include traffic roundabouts (stoplights are superior), French architecture, and, probably most of all, explanations for losing. The latter especially rankles. Bike racers hardly ever win (Landis's three recent victories tripled his win total from his five-year European career), and so most racers naturally tend to attribute losses to ostensible causes: bonking, lack of training, cold, fatigue, team strength, luck. But their logic is of a smaller magnitude than Landis's.
"Everybody wants to say, 'I couldn't win because of this or that,' " he says. "To my way of thinking, it doesn't matter if your goddamn head fell off or your legs exploded. If you didn't make it, you didn't make it. One excuse is as good as another."
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About This Entry
- You're currently reading "Quote(s) of the Day," an entry on Witchkraft Racing.
- Published: 07.27.06 / 6am
- Category: Quotes
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