Today is a huge day for American sports Fans. Tiger is about to tee off in the British Open, which he's almost certain to win, the Yankees are playing the Sox in Fenway, and Lance has the lead the TdF and if he can hold off his rivals for the next two mountain stages, he will surely win for the 7th consecutive time, breaking his own record. Wow.

As per usual, while the OLN coverage of the Tour started at 4:30 with the race well underway. There's large breakaway of 14 riders that doesn't contain any contenders, but does includes Armstrong's long time sidekick George Hincapie. The peloton which contains all the usual suspects is more than 15 minutes back. Can they pull the breakaway back over the torturous hills to come? Should be a fascinating day on the hardest stage of this year's Tour.

On top of that, the stage today will go over the infamous Col de Portet d'Aspet where Armstrong's Motorola teammate Fabio Casartelli crashed to his death in the 95 Tour. The TdF doesn't always go this route through the Pyrenees, but when it does, it's always very emotional. Often the entire peloton stops at the monument erected to Casertelli's memory for a moment of silence. Interestingly, Hincapie, who was on the Motorola team back them, was dropped for the Tour in favor of Hincapie and I wonder if he harbors some serious survivor guilt over that.