Originally Posted by
rosinante25
when i hit that hard part of the hill on my last ride i found myself thinking of tomas vocler and envisioned his face with that great look of determination & suffering and used it as inspiration to get over that hill. a few weeks ago i had never even heard of tommie vocler. for me he was the real winner of the tdf. altho i was happy for caddell who was heroic and had worked so hard for it over the years. all of the big and not so big names were great and fun to watch. but for me it was little tommie vockler whose face is on the 2011 tdf.
My sentiments exactly. Just one correction, Monsieur Voeckler's performance in this year's TdF is almost the mirror image of his performance in the 2004 TdF.
From Wiki:
A major surprise in the (2004) Tour was the performance of French newcomer Thomas Voeckler, who unexpectedly won the maillot jaune in the fifth stage and held onto it for ten stages before finally losing it to Armstrong.
And this from the Europcar official website:
Hero of a whole country that was seduced by his courage, passion and tenacious attitude, Voeckler has become the ambassador of choice for French cycling. "If someone had described how this Tour was going to pan out before the race I would have had difficulty believing them," said Voeckler, who admitted he was a little bit disappointed to have missed out on a place on the podium.