Today, the Tour of
California kicks up the kick stands for a weeklong trip up hill and down dale
in the Golden State. The Tour of
California (officially sponsored as the Amgen Tour of California) is an annual
professional cycling stage race on the UCI World Tour and USA Cycling
Professional Tour. It is the only event
on the top-level World Tour in the United States. It was first held in 2006.
The eight-day race covers 650–700 miles (1,045–1,126 km) through the U.S. state
of California.
The 2019 Amgen Tour of
California has something different in store for 19 teams of elite cyclists who
line up at Sunday’s start in Sacramento.
Over seven days, they will face high-altitude racing in South Lake Tahoe,
a climb up Mount Hamilton in the San Francisco Bay Area and a brutal ascent of
Mt. Baldy that could decide the overall winner.
This edition of the Amgen Tour will cover about 778 miles and includes
68,000 feet of elevation gain and 25 King of the Mountain climbs, all of which
make for the longest and most-difficult course in the event’s 14-year history.
Mark Cavendish, a
British sprinter and fan favorite who has struggled with Epstein-Barr virus for
much of the past two years, will return.
Stage one is a more or less flat 89 mile course, in and around
Sacramento, so the day should favor the sprinters like Cavendish and Slovak
Peter Sagan. Stage two heads into the
mountains, with the most challenging mountain finish being Mt. Baldy on Stage
6. The race will finish on Saturday,
with the finish line being in the shadow of Pasadena's famous Rose Bowl.
Sunday's stage of the
Giro d'Italia is a 205 kilometre slog from Bologna into Tuscany. Saturday's Individual Time Trial, won by Slovenian Primož Roglič. He won the stage one time trial and took the overall lead in the Giro d’Italia 2019. Second place at 19 seconds behind, was won by
Simon Yates, and Italian Vicenzo Nibali took third at 24 seconds behind. Today's stage should, in the end, favor the
sprinters. Although there are some
climbs, the peloton should hold together until the final kilometer, leading to
a mad dash to the finish line.
Sunday will also
feature some exciting basketball. The
National Basketball League in the United States and Canada is reaching the end
of their final tournament. Sunday's cartel
features two games, each game seven of their series, meaning until now each
team has won three games and today's game will determine the champ. In the first game of the afternoon, the
Portland Trail Blazers will play at the Denver Nuggets. In the second game, the Philadelphia Seventy
Sixers will play at the Toronto Raptors.
The Sixers have not performed well in this series, just well enough to
keep their heads above water and force this game seven.
The other two teams,
already determined for the quarterfinals, are the Golden State Warriors and the
Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks had not
advanced beyond the first round of the NBA since the 2000-2001 season.
