From the Rafters

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FRANCE .VS. ...................ITALY

It does not get any SEXIER than this match folks!

Can you think of any other two most romantic, culture ladden, and full of beautiful people, countries that can meet in the finals of the 2006 World Cup Finals?

Arc d'Triomphe vs. Colosseum

Pastry vs. Pasta Champagne vs. Asti Aspumante

Je t´aime vs. Ti amo (I love you)
vous êtes beau vs. siete bei (you are beautiful)

French Cheeses (Brie,Blue Cheese,Roquefort,Munster) vs. Italian Cheeses (parmessan, mozzarella,riccotta, provolone).

FRENCH COFFEE VS ITALIAN COFFEE (you can kill me right here!)

'Un baiser' on a boat down the Seine vs. 'un bacio' on a gondola in Venice ( a kiss)

I do not have a favorite here. Let's call it a tie, let's all go to BERLIN, let the beer flow, and have a big party! That is my vote!

But seriously, if anything I have to say that this is an exquisite final for an otherwise ho-hum cup. And that I wish that the only one player that has excited me with his play in this cup wins it on his last game of his career; Zinedine Zidane

Many of us, fans of The Tour Of France, started watching this event last week with mixed emotions. Sad to lose some of the big names in the sport due to doping investigations, but yet excited to see how it was going to unfold.

You simply could not predict who would be on the podium at the end of the 23 days. This week the Maillot Jaune changed owners every so often, and that was fun to watch. During the last decade, and given strong participants, usually the first stages were reserved for the sprinters and the Green Jersey competition. This year, a few of the sprinters had the chance to don the yellow jersey. Before last year, only two american cyclists had wore yellow; LeMond and Armstrong. Now there have been FIVE US cyclists in yellow (2 this year alone). Still, the questions remained as to who was going to show the promise of a victory.

While in years past, the individual time trial placed the strongest competitors in the top, today's individual time trial made the race more interesting. There are at least 15 riders in the mix right now who can compete for the middle podium in the Champs d' Elysses. Here are some observations as the first week is completed.

The T-Mobile team, after losing their star Jan Ullrich, and one of the pre-race favorites, to the doping scandal, has demonstrated that they are the strongest team. They are only competing with 7 riders, and 6 of them are placing within the first 15 riders on the General Classification competititon. The one not placing is a former standout, Giuseppi Guerini, who we should expect to see doing the hardwork in the mountains for whoever ends up being the team's leader.

That is still yet to be determined. Unimaginable that last year T-Mobile's team, who became infamous for their intra-squad squabbles, is seeing the most pure competition from within their own members. While Kessler and Gonchar have given courageous stage wins to the team, the Australian World Time Trial Champion, Michael Rogers, and former tour runner up Andreas Kloden, are putting together consistant performances along with teammate Patrick Sinkewitz.
While I expected Rogers to win the Time Trial today, two years ago, I thought Kloden would be a man to watch in the future. This year it will all depend on how he came out of his March shoulder surgery.

US star Floyd Landis seems to be the one cyclist that is in the best condition right here, right now. A 6 second delay in his prologue start, left him a runner up only 9 seconds behind. And having a problem with his bike today reportedly cost him 30 seconds; he came in second a minute behind. That is performance. Period. However, one of the factors against him would be his team;overall. First of all, there is no need to be having all these troubles with his bikes. And then, I do not think Phonak has the people needed to compete with a team like T-Mobile on the mountains. Lance Armstrong could do it on his own; Landis does not have that experience.

Another team that will find itself in trouble is CSC. Usually one of the strongest team in the tour, with the lost of Ivan Basso to the doping scandal, and today losing Bobby Julich to an accident, can only ask of Carlos Sastre to run good on his own.

Levi Lepheimer seems to be running on dead legs after winning the re-nouned Le Dauphine-Libere race just on June 11th. There are very delicate factors in preparing an athlete for the physical requirements of an event of the magnitude of the Tour de France. His people seemed to miss the timing of it by a lot.

Among some of the riders I am excited to watch are Vladimir Karpets, winner of the white Jersey for best young rider in the tour in 2004. Back then I thought he did an excellent overall tour. Cyclists like Dennis Menchov and Cadel Evans should be at their peak of their careers and this is the time to show for all of their sucesses.

Finally, there is the Discovery team. They were doing a quiet consistant job until today when none of their top cyclist were outstanding. While they remain in the mix, it will be interesting to see if George Hincapie has what it takes to be a contender. Until today he kept himself in great position. I still can not discount the promise of great performances by Paolo Salvadelli, winner of last year's Gyro d' Italia, and Yaroslav Popovich winner of the 2005 tour's white jersey. While Popo might not have the experience to be on the top three, a good ride by him could mean rewards for either Hincapie and/or Salvadelli.

While it was great watching Lance write different chapters on every stage of the tour during the last seven years, it is also very exciting to watch this tour develop differently in front of our eyes. And there are 2 weeks left.

If you are a sports fan and by now you do not pay a little attention to the Tour de France you need to have a CBC (Complete Blood Count)to check for ice in your veins. Look, there is no other athletic event as challenging as this; period. It is colorful, beautiful, dramatic and full of culture. Where have you been for the last seven years? Where were you for the last five when OLN bridged the thousand miles between the US and France and brought it to your TV, not once a day, but multiple times a day. And tomorrow, and for 21 days, cyclists from all over the globe will be taking their bikes around the country of France and some adjacent countries.

Ok, so maybe you have heard of a texan named Lance Armstrong. After 7 years of doing what it has not done before, and what it was thought to be impossible, winning this tour, Lance has retired. And tomorrow 199 athletes were slated to line up at the first stage of the tour ready to compete for something that might have been more difficult in years past. For many of us fans, that can talk about any stage during the last 7 years, we had been waiting for this day. Some of us rooted for Lance every single minute during the last seven years. But we were excited waiting to this year to see who was going to take Lance's place. Just for this year.

And now in the eve of the start of the 2006 Tour De France, a big doping scandal arises. The top five finishers from last year wont be suiting up tomorrow; Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo, Vinokorouv. For us fans, this is a very sad moment. Having Lance, and Lance's "Le Train Blue" strong team in the mix, forced other teams to create stratergies that in the long run might have kept other strong competitors from performing at their best. The stratergies these year promised to be wide open. And the personal competition intense among some of those competitors banned.
Now the tour is really up for grabs, and while we mourn the situation, the other reality is, a much wide open competition, and the ability to see which 'young' riders emerge.

Some of the cycling news are reporting a mortal shot to the sport of cycling. Not necessarily. The sports faced their worst scandal and their one possible mortal shot in 1998. Since then, the sports have been ridden with doping scandals ever since. Lance Armstrong himself has probably been the number one target of doping rumors. Yet, nothing proved. Interesting that in this day that the race loses its biggest names in the race, a court in England made a ruling against the London Times in a libel suit from Lance Armstrong. The 'Times" reposted the words from a book entitled "L.A. Confidential", which accused Lance of using enhancing drugs. And therein lie the failure of the "Times"; accusing rather than raising questions.

Since that scandal, better methods and tests have been developed not only by the cycling federations but also by all the federations in all other sports, all around the world, to detect cheaters. So we owe the cyclists for that. Yes, they might have been the early settlers, the ones that kept unscrupulous scientists developing better enhancing drug performance. But because of them we have a little better control today.

At this time we do not for sure if the 'top' names that were kicked out of the Tour De France are innocent or guilty. Still, we have to applaud the stance taking by the team managers who were the ones to decide they were not going to taint their sport by taking 'suspects' into the competition. This is another reason why the sport will survive this scandal.

Once again in this cynical life we live we do not know what is real or what is not. But wouldn't be interesting that after all the doping accusations against Lance, it was really his competitors who were cheating trying to keep up? If the accusations are real, would Basso have kept up with Armstrong the last 3 years in the mountains? Would Jan have been a finalist in every tour he competed against Lance, and would he have won it in 1998? Or were those two just trying to compete against each other in this defining year? And how interesting is the fact that no one from the Discovery Team, Lance's old team was caught up in this scandal. Yeah, there have been old teammates who have been caught; Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Herras. But is that the reason why they were not a part of Lance's team anymore? Or did they feel they had to regain that competitive edge by taking chemically made human growth hormones?

While sad, the competition should keep me glue to my TV for the next three weeks.

The Miami Heat beat the Dallas Mavericks for the 2006 NBA Championship!

The 2006 team that was assembled by Pat Riley the General Manager to win a championship, and ended up winning it all with Pat Riley the coach. Before the season started, this team looked invincible on paper. But that was on paper only.

Please do not get me wrong; I love MY HEAT! I have been waiting for this for 16 years. But, any objective person will tell you that this team never played to its potential. In general, you can call them underachievers. And that also include its coach. Still, there are plenty of good stories from these players.

Since the season began the team did not seem to gel. Former stars like Antoine Walker and Jayson Williams who have joined the team during off season trades, struggled throughout the season to find their role. So many times it seems that Dwyane Wade was taking all the shots, and with them, either winning or losing games; everyone else was just watching! It was at times excruciating watching this team play.

The Detroit Pistons played its best regular season ever, even though they had won the last three Eastern Conference Championships, and the NBA Finals two years ago. They had beaten the Heat in a 7-game series the previous year, with the Heat in Control of the series up to a few minutes before that last game ended. They were the Heat first major goal to overcome. Yet, during the regular season Detroit won 12 more games than the Heat. Even the Cleveland Cavaliers almost had an identical record as the Heat except for two games. On the Western Conference three teams, San Antonio, Dallas and Phoenix in that order, had better record than the Heat.

Chicago gave the Heat some difficulty in the first round of the playoffs. But as the series developed themselves, the Heat seemed to start peaking at the right time, dispatching the Nets, and making the Pistons seem like a regular team. And there they were in the Finals against a surging, high-scoring, don't-lose-a-game-seven Dallas Mavericks team.

The Heat committed a bountiful of turnovers in the six games; 15,13,20,18,11,19. Dallas only edge them in two games; one of them in their 14 points win during the second game, the other one during the over time game five. The Heat never had an edge in the free throw area ; missed FT's by game, 12, 12, 14, 13, 17, 14. They split the games when it came to who grabbed more rebounds. The Mavs had a better shooting percentage and took more shots than the Heat during the series. So how did the team win?

One thing I have learned from watching Basketball throughout the years; you need to lose one tough series, and have a heartbreak, before you can come back and perform in that situation. The Mavericks tightened up during the second quarter in the final game, and could not do one of those patented runs they had several times during all the preceding games. During the warm-ups I called my cousin and told him to call Vegas and bet on the Heat for game 6. He asked why; 'I can see the fear in their face. Nowitzki is jumping up and down like the energizer bunny, and Jason Terry does not stop staring at the basket. Meanwhile Shaq and Wade are laughing while gauging the air pressure of the basketballs'. That what it takes. Coolness under stress.

While Dallas stood around thinking, the Heat were reacting. The Mavericks could not execute in those last minute. If it was not for his seven feet tall frame, I would have asked where was Dirk. But I knew where he was on game 3; missing a last minute free throw. Terry, who shot 57% on game 5, shot only 28% on game 6, and missed that last open 3 pointer. And by the way, he took two more shots on that last game. Josh Howard mili-second mistake of calling a time out on the last 1.9 second of game two, is recorded on TV for anyone to see, and for him to spin around. And you all remember Stackhouse dumb play on a streaking Shaquille O'Neal. on game 4, making himself unavailable for game 5.

Everytime the Heat played strong, the Mavs could not match up. But that was not often. As Riley put in the post game conference, "it was not always pretty". Pat, most of the time it wasn't pretty. But they were too good, than even when they played bad, they were able to pull out the victory.

The Miami Heat are the 2006 NBA Champions!!!

If I had an idea of starting a sports blog, this is it! This is the time!

All my life I have rooted for teams from distant places. In 1990 I moved to Miami. The Miami Heat was just in their second year. The Dolphins and the Hurricanes were already here; I moved into their town. I did not feel a sense of belonging. But I did with the Heat. In those first years I remember loving going to those games. Back then, you could get good seats, and it seemed like everytime I went there was a nice give away; hats, bags, t-shirts.

Before Miami, my only NBA experiences came from the old MECCA arena, home of the Milwaukee Bucks. A place where, as a college student, I saw the greats Magic and Bird, and where I was able to slap fives with Dr. J and, on his first NBA (pre-season) game, one Michael Jeffrey Jordan. Back in those days, I was attending a small, Jesuit, college, better known for its basketball history, Marquette University.

Forward to spring 2000. I had configured my internet provider to send me emails news from Marquette basketball. A name kept popping up; Dwyane Wade. In the Spring of 2003, Marquette reaches its first final four since winning the NCAA championship in 1977 behind #3. That Summer, the NBA draft was taking place. Miami had secured the 5th pick. The projections were that Miami would pick Wade. The Marquee names for that draft, a high school phenomena named LeBron James, and the revelation of that year's NCAA Tournament, Carmelo Anthony. I was praying Dwyane would land in Miami so that I could go see him.

In his first year, under the shadow of LeBron and Carmelo he puts on a show at the rookie game that was part of the all-star weekend. He was putting a show all year long and people missed it under the hoopla. Unlike LeBron and Carmelo's teams, Miami makes it to the playoffs on the 2003-04 season.

In July 2004, I am out of town in Business; in Los Angeles. The news that day that Shaquille O'Neal had been traded to Miami. I still have my copy of the Los Angeles Times. He gets to Miami and while shooting a water gun promises 'a parade on Biscayne Bay'. The 2004-2005 season sees the Heat losing to eventual champions Detroit Pistons on a 7th game. Wade and Shaq had been playing hurt during the series.

And then came this season. I bought partial season tickets knowing that was going to be the best way to go to all playoffs and championship games. By then, the world knew who Dwyane Wade was. At every game you could hear the fans chanting MVP. But he trascendentally grew in stature in the biggest stage of all. He has become the only thing comparable to Michael Jordan, only in his third season, making the basket when was needed, grabbing the rebound, making the steal or the block. having the best selling jersey in the NBA.

And the first NBA team that I adopted as mine, who I love, today has won its first championship, behind a classy 24 year old whom I admire not only because of his abilities, but because he is one of those nice guys that do not come too often. And whom I share an important phase of both of our lives.

Thanks for this experience! Thanks Dwyane, Thanks Heat!
CONGRATULATIONS!! Somewhere Queen is playing, "We are the Champions"!