Bad, bad, bad news. Alejandro Valverde

[scooter01]

3:10 p.m. - Bad, bad, bad news. Alejandro Valverde ( Illes Balears) who started the day in fifth place, at 3:16 and has the best young rider jersey is reportedly pulling out of the Tour with knee troubles.

3:13 p.m. - Valverde is in his team car. He's handed in his race number... That's it.

[scooter01]

Andrew Hood spoke with Valverde before the start, today. He had apparently planned to pull out today.

"I'd like to try to stay in the race, but it's not going well. This Tour has been great for me, but I don't want to leave the race like this, but there's only so much you can do when you have an injury."


the above from Velo News "live"

What a shame, he was a hero climbing this past weekend, 6 minutes down, then a stage win- now out.

[Tom]

Boonen's out, too? I didn't realize that. Karen loved the green shorts. She says she might buy me a pair.

[Bill Bove]

It has been a very fast tour and it hasn't let up much in the hills. Look for more sprinters to abandon over the weekend.

Bouncin' off the pavement five time in three days didn't help Boonen much either.

[Keith A]

That's too bad -- he certainly seems to have a bright future ahead of him. It seems like I read yesterday that he was having some knee problems. I guess this continued to bother him today.

[slowgoing]

Stop giving us TDF updates without the "spoiler" warning. "Bad, bad, bad news. Alejandro Valverde" in the title pretty much tells us what happened to him today. Please let the rest of us watch for ourselves and stop making this a minute by minute race to post results on the forum.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . a very minor "shame on you!"

Tom . . . I got news for you. I don't think it was the shorts she liked.

BBDave