Radio Wales presenter Owen Money made a comment on the Tour last Saturday, wondering how Mark Cavendish had won four stages but was only in 125th place.
My mother in law said something similar to this when she realised some 10 years back that the overall winner (can't remember who) hadn't won a stage, and yet some sprint rider who had won 3 stages was nowhere near the lead. I explained it was an aggregate time of all days added together, shortest time wins. She ruminated for a bit, and still didn't get it.
I likened it to a real world example - I said picture some men in a 3 week sand shovelling competition, some are big muscle guys, some are more about endurance rather than outright power. Picture one huge guy in a green shirt who shovels a massive amount of sand in one day, more than anyone else, for which he gets a daily prize. But he can't do that every day, he's not got the endurance of some shovellers, and some days he's not up to it and he's slower and sits back to recover. Now picture a man in a yellow shirt who shovels a really good amount of sand every single day, day in, day out, no resting, no off days. At the end of the competition, you will find that the man in the yellow shirt has shifted way, way more sand than the green man, even though he never broke the daily record of the green shirted one.
Did she get it then? Nope, she still can't fathom it and this is ten years on, and many attempts at explaining.
Its not what you expect of a potential TDF winner. His mother in law is more famous than him in Denmark. She was in one of our bake off programmes. She did not win it but is a character and has gained the lime light on Danish TV.
