True rumour!

The first news headline that I saw as soon as I woke up today is "London to host 2012 Olympics". Immediately, my heart sank in sorrow for all Parisians. After being fed on the hype instilled by the media that Paris is the clear frontrunner for almost two weeks now, I'm sure a cloud of gloom would have been cast over the whole of France today (Literally, it indeed began to rain around 1:49pm local time in Paris - just before the decision was announced!). I can almost visualize the general lack of spirit in every Frenchman's heart, just like the state in India after a loss to Pakistan in a cricket match :)

Anyway, the title of this blog is regarding another bit of news involving London and France. One of the many articles I read about the IOC's decision stated that there was a rumour going around that London had also been selected as the city from where next year's Tour de France would start. My instinctive reaction was that this is obviously impossible. Come on - isn't it the Tour de "France"? How the hell can they even consider starting the race in London? But, in fact, after googling around I found that this is indeed true! The TDF organizing committee is considering 6 candidate cities to host the prologue time trial that starts off the event every year - 4 of them are in France, then there is London and there is also a city in Denmark! London has proposed that the event be flagged off from the Mall outside the Buckingham Palace. After reading this, I lost all sympathy for the French. When they are so foolish as to even consider starting their traditional event - the Tour de "France" - in London, their certainly is nothing unfair in them losing out to the English capital for hosting the Olympics!

To close, here's the mind-blowing stat for the day: the average speed set by the Lance Amstrong-led Discovery Channel team in yesterday's team time trial was 57.32 kmph! If there are more of such guys, they'll soon need to introduce speed limits for bikes :)

Cheers,
Harsha