Growing up, I was all about Magic, Kareem, Worthy (pictured), Cooper, Rambis, Byron Scott and the rest of my beloved Lakers. Scott Jacobson and I would go back and forth between my Lakers and his Celtics and for most of the '80's the debate raged on. Of course, I've enjoyed fairly recent success as a Lakers fan, but this is sooooo much better. The gold vs. the green will look so sweet (assuming that I'm actually able to watch any of it).
Needless to say though, I am a bigger cycling fan than basketball, so I can't help but be nostalgic when the Giro d'Italia included the Gavia Pass on today's stage, 20 years after my favorite cyclist, Andy Hampsten, somehow willed himself over the snow covered, gravel road on his way to claiming the only American victory in the history of Italy's grand tour. It's been fun reading interviews and retrospectives from the '88 race over the last month. It's been a great reminder of the early days of American cycling's introduction to the European stage and why I fell in love with this sport in the first place.
This year's Giro will end tomorrow and has been a fun one to follow online (I don't have cable or Direct TV, so no access to any televised coverage). The riders will start tomorrow's time trial stage with only four seconds separating first and second place. The current leader is Alberto Contador who won last year's Tour de France while a part of the Discovery Channel Team and he should fair pretty well since he is a better time trialer than Riccardo Riccò and the next best guy is two minutes back. Even though Contador is Spanish and the team is registered in a European nation and sponsored by the government of Kazakhstan there is still a US connection. The team rides Trek bikes designed and built in Waterloo, Wisconsin!
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