Avez-vous vu ma course?

If anyone would have told me I'd be writing a sports blog and the first post would be about tennis, I would've scoffed. Tennis returned to my personal sports radar with a thunder 1000x louder than the Red October, but now we're in the midst of another major fringe sports event, and it has returned to an obscurity the sport hasn't experienced in the last twenty years. Do you even know what event?

The event is the Tour de France. Following Lance Armstrong's retirement and Floyd Landis's shaming, le Tour is nary a blip. From Lemond to Indurain, Armstrong to Landis cycling was always in the periphery, but no longer. Doping and lack of an American face or a dominant name have rendered cycling lifeless. I didn't even realize they were on Stage four. A quick search of Google News shows one two American articles even referenced on the first page (both of those about Google Maps involvement on the official site). ESPN and Foxsports have one line on their main pages, and while CBSSports has it listed as what's hot in sports, there's been only one comment on the story (compared to 86 about the Beasley/Rose matchup in a summer league game).

As an aside, Stefan Schumacher won stage four and is the current leader. If tennis is back, cycling has ridden into the sunset (at least for the time being).