The good. The bad. And the winners.

(AP) TOULOUSE, France - Tour de France riders have already battled crashes, flares, and fans or dogs straying into their roads. Now, some ne'er-do-well dumped tacks on the road, and if the aim was to disrupt cycling's big race, it worked.
But as cyclists often do in the face of difficulty, they kept going.
Bradley Wiggins of Britain, the Queen Bee of the pack because he is wearing the yellow jersey, drew plaudits for at least slowing its pace and waiting for defending champ Cadel Evans in Sunday's Stage 14.
Tour officials estimated that around 30 competitors in the main pack blew flats near the day's steepest climb, the Mur de Peguere, as Luis Leon Sanchez led a breakaway far ahead of the trouble to win the stage. One rider crashed as a result of the tacks.

It is Tour de France time. And that always brings out the weird stories.

And what a story! Tacks in the road during the world’s most famous bike race. Tacks! Who would do such a thing?

But the real news buried in the story was that Bradley Wiggins held up the leaders in the peloton to wait on last year’s champion, Cadel Evans. That is true sportsmanship. Unlike Alberto Contador, who year before last, ran off and left his only challenger, Andy Schleck, with a broken chain on the side of a mountain. Contador was and is a sad case of super ego gone bad. Forget that he was a doper. Forget he had to give up the yellow jersey to Schleck for cheating. He was and is not a sportsman. Not when you compared his actions to the acts of Wiggins, who effectively kept a major competitor and rival in the hunt for the yellow jersey – as is the accepted custom of the cycling sport.  It was a most selfless act. You don’t witness that much any longer in professional sports. One of the last big time champions I saw do it was Lance Armstrong, who held back the entire race waiting for fallen competitors to have a chance to catch up.

Money – winning – and the money that comes with winning– as well as the sponsorship and the money it brings, have all but killed sportsmanship in sports. Sounds like money is the root of these evils.

There was a story of a girl in Ohio named Megan Vogel who helped a competitor across the finish line after the competitor collapsed from exhaustion in a long-distance race at a state finals track meet this past spring. Megan had already one the 1600-meter race and was trying for the 3200-meter win, as she saw the other runner fall. She stopped, helped her up and they crossed the line 14^th and 15^th; Megan, letting her fallen rival cross ahead of her. Nobody is interviewing the winner of the race. I am not writing about her. I am writing about somebody who did something right in sports.  For a change. No dancing in the end zone. No spiking the ball.  No backflips or burnouts. Just quietly doing what is right.

Just like Bradley Wiggins, who may well win the Tour de France – but again, he may not. But he is by far and away a better competitor than Contador of Spain will ever be with or without the yellow jersey. Because he did what was right. Alberto Contador and his handlers hid behind the excuse that the waiting on a competitor is not written down in the rules. No. And neither is being a gentleman. As Jim Clarke of Scotland said after losing the Indy 500 on a technicality he could have challenged, “Gentlemen do not protest.” Sportsman are supposed to do certain things. Like being big sports.

I wish there were more of these stories in sports. But the winner take all mentality has changed the soul of the games –all games. And I am not sure that soul is a very healthy one at that anymore.

As for the person who threw the tacks on the road’s surface, my you have one hundred punctures in your tires for the next ten years.