“All due respect to Levi, he’s not the strongest descender,” Van Garderen said. “He sometimes loses his nerve a little bit. That’s one of my strong suits: I’ve got balls, so I just went for it. When I saw we had a gap, we just drove it.”
The Heroes want to give a shout-out to Tejay van Garderen, raised in Bozeman, Montana and resident of Lucca, Tuscany. At 23 calling out your elders takes a certain panache and as TVG likes to remind us, “balls”. Sometimes even a great young slugger parades around the bases with too much hubris and then someone else in the line-up takes it on the chin, or the elbo or the middle of the back. No criticism here because Tejay’s comment reminds us of the greats: Hinault, Cipo, Armstrong, De Vlaeminck when they started to flex their young champion muscles. Of course reality always takes a bite as Levi stormed to beautiful time trial victory in Vail. In every sport there is the payback and I suppose Levi got his. Nevertheless, the Heroes are looking forward to watching and listening to Tejay van Garderen for the coming years.
Photo by Luke Jay.