Le Touquet-Paris-Plage – Lille Métropole

Distance: 163.5 kilometers.

Marcel Kittel has now won three of the four stages, but still trails the Yellow Jersey by almost 20 minutes. In the battle for Yellow Froome and Contador have swapped places in the standings – Froome down to 7 and Contador up to 5.

Today’s stage was another for sprinters as the Tour honors the centennial of World War I by running through many of the battlefields of that war. Today was across ‘Flanders fields’.

Vincenzo Nibali ( Ita – AST – 041 ) [Yellow] 17h 07′ 52″
Peter Sagan ( Svk – CAN – 051 ) [Green] 158 points
Cyril Lemoine ( Fra – COF – 174 ) [Polka Dot] 6 points
Peter Sagan ( Svk – CAN – 051 ) 2 [White]

Team: Sky ( SKY – 001-009 ) [Yellow numbers]
Stage winner: Marcel Kittel ( Ger – GIA – 101 )
Combative: Thomas Voeckler ( Fra – EUC – 159 ) [Red numbers]

Top Ten:

1 Vincenzo Nibali ( Ita – AST – 041 ) 17h 07′ 52″
2 Peter Sagan ( Svk – CAN – 051 ) + 00′ 02″
3 Michael Albasini ( Sui – OGE – 182 ) + 00′ 02″
4 Greg Van Avermaet ( Bel – BMC – 148 ) + 00′ 02″
5 Alberto Contador ( Esp – TCS – 031 ) + 00′ 02″
6 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte ( Esp – MOV – 011 ) + 00′ 02″
7 Christopher Froome ( GB – SKY – 001 ) + 00′ 02″
8 Jurgen Van Den Broeck ( Bel – LTB – 131 ) + 00′ 02″
9 Bauke Mollema ( Ned – BEL – 061 ) + 00′ 02″
10 Jakob Fuglsang ( Den – AST – 042 ) + 00′ 02″

The Rest of the Top 30:
[Read more →]

Brazil is not only without the services of their captain, Silva, for his second yellow card, their head of PR has been banned for 4 games and fined 10k Swiss francs for roughing up a Chile player during halftime of an earlier game. The team has racked up 96 fouls and 10 yellow cards so far, more than any other side in the tournament and then have the gall to ask FIFA for leniency in Silva’s case.

This is not good for football, especially Latin American football. I would feel a lot better if I didn’t get the feeling that some of those involved think that games are won by the casualty count instead of the goal count.

The game starts at 3PM CDT, so I’ll be updating with more later…

Wow! It happened but none of the ‘experts’ saw it coming. No one would suggest this as a probable outcome at this level.

In hindsight the Germans must have been testing their assumptions during the first ten minutes. Then Muller drew first blood at 11 minutes, followed by the final tweaking and the blitzkrieg was launched. Miroslav Klose entered the record books at 23 minutes, scoring for the 16^th time in a World Cup finals round. Kroos scored a minute later, and then again at 26 minutes. Khedira waited three minutes before he scored the fourth goal in 6 minutes. The first half ended Brazil 0-5 Germany.

After a half like that you would expect Germany to play defense to win, but they played defense the entire game, and Schürrle [a sub for Klose at 59 minutes] felt he needed to do his part so he added goals at 69 and 79 minutes.

Brazil finally responded at 90 minutes when Oscar snuck one in, so the game ended: Brazil 1-7 Germany. Just wow…