Where was Eki during the Tour de France?

August 17, 2007 11:42 AM

Watching this years television coverage of the TdF there seemed to be a void in the absence of Viatcheslav Ekimov. During the Tour de France he was busy being team director for the non-TdF Team Discovery Channel cyclists who were competing in the Tour de Qinhai Lake bike race in China. Beautiful scenery, exotic peoples, described with interesting Chinese to English translations. Altogether a great preview for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
posted by X4ster (10 comments total)

First post noob here. You go to the Blue with the post you have, not the post you'd like to have.
posted by X4ster at 11:51 AM on August 17, 2007

Thanks, X4ster. Ekimov has been an institution at the Tour. It's nice to be reminded of his career on the Blue.
posted by honest knave at 11:59 AM on August 17, 2007

I guess Ekimov will be polishing up his resume now that the Discovery Channel team is disbanding for lack of interest by sponsors. Odd considering they employ the current Tour de France champion...
posted by Eekacat at 12:14 PM on August 17, 2007

Funny you posted this today. I was just thinking last night that, while I have reservations about China hosting the Olympics, the terrain for the road race should be great.
posted by space2k at 12:44 PM on August 17, 2007

honest knave I have great regard for Eki's accomplishments. In my 60 years of life I've only asked 3 people for an autograph; one author, one scientist and one athlete - Ekimov.
posted by X4ster at 12:52 PM on August 17, 2007

How dare you make a post about Eki and fail to mention the mullet!
posted by turbodog at 2:50 PM on August 17, 2007

If Eki decides to be Tinkoff's new DS, he might get a free Russian toaster!
posted by birdsong at 4:37 PM on August 17, 2007

X4ster: Good for you. He deserves the respect.
posted by honest knave at 2:53 AM on August 18, 2007

Eki also had the best mullet in professional sport, and it's heartening to see that he has now passed the baton to his fellow Russian, Vladimir Karpets.

But yeah, as a cycling fan, the Tour of Qinghai Lake has interested me for a few years. In it's early years it produced some great winners like Damiano Cunego and Tom Danielson, both of whom have gone on to have great careers at the very top level. I think I read once that in China it has a daily TV audience of over 300m, which is actually more than the Tour de France.

With that, the Tour de Langkawi, the Japan Cup, the Tour of Siam, there are some great races in Asia and it wouldn't surprise me if we saw some great champions come out of that continent in the next 10-15 years. After all, how many Americans and Australians were in the pro peloton 20 years ago?
posted by afx237vi at 5:32 AM on August 18, 2007

Eki was like 40 in last year's race, wasn't he?
posted by mathowie at 11:51 AM on August 19, 2007