L'Alpe d'Huez.

Y'know, I really like the Tour de France. Tremendous athletes, who batter their bodies day after day for 21 days, exerting more in a single day than the professional "athletes" of baseball, basketball or football do in a week. Team players - domestiques - who really do give their all for their team. Stories of individual glory, like French riders who want more than anything to win a daily stage during this centennial Tour. Absolutely unbelievable stories of individual bravery and achievement, of overcoming adversity. Lunatic crowds of fans, like the half-million who lined the road up L'Alpe d'Huez on Sunday, creating a tunnel of people and noise unlike anything seen in other professional sports: where else do fans get to squirt water onto the overheated athletes, or run alongside them, urging them on? (Not in football or baseball, where fans placidly sit in their seats, or in soccer where - in South America, at least - players are separated from the crowds by chain link fences. I guess in the U.S., empty seats serve the same purpose.)

While I'm pleased that Lance Armstrong has finally taken the yellow jersey, and think that the U.S. Postal team has been riding a great tactical race, understanding that the race lasts another two weeks and that what's important is who leads at the end of the race, and not who leads at the end of the first week, what has completely dumbfounded me is the Tour that Tyler Hamilton has been having. He was in a crash at the end of the first stage, and broke his collarbone in two places. He's stayed in the race (yes, the race physicians have looked closely at him and his x-rays), and a week later, he's not only still racing but still racing at the front of the pack. He went up L'Alpe d'Huez with Lance Armstrong's group at the front of the race today, and even took off on a couple of challenges to Lance. All while being unable to stand up in his seat to accelerate without incurring incredible pain. It takes tremendous courage and stamina for him to stay in the race, and I look forward to watching his success in future Tours de France.