This year’s 2018 Tour de France event is getting downright dangerous.
Buried inside of today’s sports headlines, the annual European bicycle race seems to be setting new marks for strange happenings. Just today, a group of protesting angry farmers threw bales of hay onto the road just as these fast-moving cyclists were speeding down a country road during the 16th stage of this 21-event annual race.
Hay, Hay – what did I say? You got it. The race was halted to clear both the road and this unseemly swarm of angry agriculturalists bent on trouble.
Unfortunately, the tear gas being used by the French police to disperse this band of rural mischief cultivators literally backfired – and gassed the cyclists instead!
Sacre bleu!
Four-time Tour de France champ Chris Froome from Great Britain was one of the riders who received a shot of the wayward tear gas being used to remove about twenty local farmers who were protesting a reduction in farm subsidies by the European Union.
“I had a bit of tingling in the back of the throat but I used some water to wash it out”, said the defending title holder as he remained in second place once the race restarted after a 15-minute delay.
Aie, my eyes!
Froome, similar to the banished and nearly forgotten American cyclist Lance Armstrong, has been riding under a cloud of non-tear gas chemical suspicion this year. According to reports, the French racing fans apparently don’t care much for the champ as they have attempted to knock Froome off his bike and have spat on him during this year’s race, too.
Francais Esprit sportif?
Just a few days earlier, another unseemly Tour de France incident happened while the cyclists dealt with a mountainous portion of the race. One of the racers threw an apparent punch at another cyclist while they were both still in motion!
Oups!
I never knew that these bicycle races were so dangerous, did you? With only five more stages remaining in this year’s Tour de France, Chris Froom is tantalizingly close to tying the record with his fifth victory in sight.
With the odd way this year’s race has been evolving, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of these rapscallion French fans or another testy rider might stop by the local Acme Warehouse and toss out one of those Portable Holes onto the road to prevent Froom from completing the race as France’s version of Wile E. Coyote is overheard shouting…
Au revoir, Monsieur Froome!