What a dream week for racing fans (I mean, the kind of racing junkies who enjoy all formula one, "stock" car and bicycle races) To be honest, I have a hard time calling myself a fan of F1 as I almost stopped watching (or fast-forward through) most of the races since it's either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg from the same Mercedes team winning it (Lewis had the upper hand in the past and won 2 championship during that run but now it's over. It's Rosberg's time) I have been relying on updates from my buddy on WhatsApp to decide whether to watch the recorded race these days but this Spanish GP was different: my buddy told me I should watch it as it was won by Max Verstappen. I couldn't believe what I heard. I saw this guy racing in Macau 2 years ago (he didn't do much that race except crashing out) I thought he was still with the "junior" Red Bull team. Turns out Red Bull has decided to swap him with another young driver on the "senior" team just before this race (thus promoting him and demoting his replacement) What a decision it turned out to be! Well, there was definitely an element of luck too: the two Mercedes driver took out each other at turn 4 of lap 1! (As a HAM fan, my description was that ROS blocked HAM and caused the crash) However, for some reason, the 2 cars from the next fastest team, Ferrari, driven by 2 former world champ, couldn't take advantage and let the younger driver (in fact, the youngest winner ever) of the 3rd fastest team, Red Bull, win the race! Oh well, I'm sure this was just a rare deviation from the norm: the subsequent races will all be won by Rosberg again. :P
There was another young vs established driver (former champ) showdown at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover on the same day too but this time the latter prevailed. What a close finish of that race with Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliot in that order. Kenseth showed why he was a championship level driver by holding off Larson whose car actually ran better. Don't get me wrong: Larson did a great job too. He was actually overtaken by Elliot for a while but got his position back later. I hope Larson would get his big break-through in the top series soon by winning his first race after these many 2nd place finishes.
The Tour of California also started on the same day down in San Diego. As of now 4 stages have completed and all of them featured very exciting finishes: Stage 1 was a sprinter's stage. Among the favorites were pure sprinters like Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff. Eventually it was the not-so-pure-but-could-also-sprint Peter Sagan who did it again. He is the all-time winners of most stages of this tour and also won the overall last year. Stage 2 we saw 2 men in the breakaway survived the chase by the peloton and the duel at the finish line was won by former US National Road Race champ Ben King (My newest cycling friend, Alex Candelario of Big Island Bike Tours, finished 2nd to him in 2010!) Stage 3 was another mountain top finish at Gibraltar Road in Santa Barbara, which was well-known as a tough tough climb in the area but was chosen by the Tour for the first time! Julian Alaphilippe patiently waited for the right moment near the end of the race to attack and won it and also took over the overall lead. Stage 4, started in Morro Bay, was a special one for all of us who rode Sea Otter Gran Fondo before: the last Cat-2 climb of the stage was the Laurel Grade. I still remember how hard it was. I must have stopped 2 or 3 times on that not-too-long but steep stretch. Then after the super-fast decent there was another climb into the Laguna Seca raceway (famous for its big drop as seen in old Indy car races. MotoGP still races there) which was the finish of the stage. What was interesting about the race was that the previously mentioned pure sprinter Mark Cavendish actually joined the breakaway and didn't get caught until the Laurel Grade! After the chase group caught the breakaway, it became a group sprint finish and won by none other than Peter "the Great" Sagan, who was so good at "unorganized" group sprint (i.e., in which the lead-out train didn't get a chance to form properly and sprinters have to improvise on who to follow and when to take off) Hope the rest of the tour would be as exciting for me to write about.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
The "leaked" Queen's comment on the recent visit by the Chinese leader
If you follow world/Chinese news, you should recall the high profile visit of the Chinese leader to the UK last year. It was a big deal that he was able to meet the Queen. Normally that wouldn't have happened but they made an exception because of the large amount of money that would brought to the country by doing businesses with the Chinese. This was supposed to be the evidence of the changing of the guard: a used-to-be-world-dominating country kow-tow to the latest "super power." Well, the British people were known for having their say in a subtle fashion. BBC just leaked a comment by the Queen related to this visit: it happened at an annual party that let her people to meet her Majesty. One of the participant mentioned to the Queen that she was an official from the police department that handled the visit. And the Queen's response? Two simple words that implied a lot: "Bad luck! " Then she went on to comment that the group was "rude. " The beauty of this was that no one could rebut on these comments as they were unofficial! Is this an intentional leak or what? One has to remember the British politicians were very good at their game.
[Update:] Even more details were leaked afterwards, according to those sources, the Chinese leader was very picky: down to the color of the closet, the location of the bathroom and the menu of the official dinners.
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