Athlete of the Year

As many of you know, I am a big sports fan. I'm also a conflicted fan as well. There's moments when I love sports and there's moments when I wish I could walk from it and move on to different interests. Unfortunately, of late there have been more moments of the latter than the former. I believe that this is attributable in part to the culture of sports, which has devolved over the past several year, and in part to the athletes themselves, many of whom have become self-absorbed, attention seeking narcisists (hello, Brett Favre!).

Just when I am despairing and ready to give it all up, I stumble across stories such as this (thank Hope!), which reaffirms my hope not just in sports, but humanity. Even if you are not a sports fan, you have got to check this out.

There's no question that Chris Horner gets my vote as athlete of the year. I'm especially stoked that it's a cyclist.

Speaking of cycling, a very interesting tour is shaping up. It might not have the "tier one" names of years past, but it's a very interesting race nonetheless. It appears I was correct in my assesment of the favorite: Valverde appears to have given too much at the Dauphine and I think he lost any chance at the GC during the Tourmalet stage yesterday. Evans is in yellow but only by one second (literally) and he hasn't really impressed. The real revelation has been the American from Illinois, Christian Vande Velde. He's currently in third place and is riding like a man possessed. I will be rooting for him in a big way over the next ten days. It would be an amazing, amazing story if he was able to podium.