Quote of the Month – Mayo's a Stranger to Yellow

Some might say it’s a tad early yet to be declaring a given soundbite the Quote of the Month. But the way I’ve been posting recently, this may be the only quote I take a moment to rip on in January. So savor it. Trust me, it’s tasty.

“Mayo admitted he would find it strange to be ‘wearing from yellow now on after so many years in orange’…”

Harried syntax aside (“from yellow now on”?), I find it most appropriate that Iban Mayo dubs that glorious tint so unfamiliar. After all, his closest brush with the most famous of all yellow shirts came in 2003, on a day when its major contenders were all either suffering from stomach flu, riding with the rear brake on, preparing to crash out, or recovering from a broken collarbone. Though Mayo no doubt got a fistful of the maillot jaune during his tumble on Stage 15, never once did he don the fabled fleece.

There was the Basque’s record-setting run up the Ventoux at the ’04 Dauphine, but though that competition awards its race leader a yellow shirt as well, Mayo wasn’t wearing it during his GC-clinching TT. But based on his performances in that June event, while allegedly targeting the month-off Tour, Saunier Duval may do well to deceive the Basque that he’s aiming for Dauphine Libere in June of ’07, to have him at peak form for the Giro in May. Perhaps they have already taken this into account; if so, keep an eye peeled for a slender man in yellow on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix.

(also, comments have been turned on again. they had been down for months due to a technical error.)