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Chris Froome crossed the line arm-in-arm with his Team Sky teammates as he joined the elite club of three-time Tour de France winners, while Andre Greipel won the final stage in Paris on Sunday.Froome, already Britains only multiple-Tour winner, is now one of just eight men -- not counting the disgraced Lance Armstrong -- to have won three or more Tours, and will have his sights set on record five-time winners Jacques Anquetil, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx.Froome, who had been able to enjoy a glass of champagne and a sip of beer on the 113km stage from Chantilly, met his wife Michelle and baby boy Kellan just after the finish line as the celebrations began in earnest.In his podium speech, Froome thanked his team and family before paying tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack in Nice on Bastille Day, midway through the Tour.This tour has obviously taken place against the backdrop of terrible events in Nice and we pay our respects, once again, to those who lost their lives in this terrible event, he said.Of course these kind of events put sport into perspective but they also show why the values of sport are so important to free society.We all love the Tour de France because it is unpredictable but we love the Tour more for what stays the same -- the passion of the fans from every nation along the roadside, the beauty of the French countryside and the bonds of friendship created through sport.These things will never change. Vive le Tour et Vive la France.The 31-year-old had effectively sealed victory by staying upright on Saturdays stage 20 to Morzine ahead of Sundays largely processional stage.With a four-minute advantage in his pocket he was able to sit up and enjoy the moment with his team-mates as others finished ahead, although the final general classification retained the time gaps from Saturday night.That meant Froome won the Tour by four minutes and five seconds from Frenchman Romain Bardet.German Greipel, also the winner in Paris 12 months ago, pipped the late-charging world champion Peter Sagan to the line in the traditional sprint on the Champs-Elysees after racing clear of Norways Alexander Kristoff on the run-in.French hope Bryan Coquard was denied the chance to go for victory as he was held up by a late mechanical, while Marcel Kittel was also hit by a mechanical in the closing stages and was unable to contest the sprint.Kristoff attacked first but Greipel, with his Lotto-Soudal lead-out train doing its job on the final approach, burst clear to make sure he did not leave this Tour empty-handed.I cant describe it, said Greipel. Im just super proud of what weve achieved today. Ive raced for three weeks for that. The team kept believing in me.Weve tried many times and we walk away from the Tour with two stage wins, with Thomas De Gendt and myself. This morning, we had a good plan. There was a head wind at the end. I just tried to stay calm.Once we hit the finale, we were one guy too short so I chose to follow Alexander Kristoff who was the strongest. But this is another stage win at the Tour de France. Its wonderful.While Froome was confirmed as the overall winner, Tinkoffs Sagan wrapped up his fifth straight victory in the points classification.The 23-year-old Briton Adam Yates of Orica-BikeExchange took the white jersey as the best young rider in the race -- the first Briton to win the category -- while Sagans team-mate Rafal Majka was confirmed in the king of the mountains polka-dot jersey.Nairo Quintana was third overall, four minutes and 21 seconds behind Froome, while Yates was fourth, a further 21 seconds back. Shannon Sharpe Broncos Jersey . You can watch the game live on TSN at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. The Flyers had won seven of eight before dropping their last two outings on consecutive days over the weekend. Philadelphia was handed a 6-3 loss by the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon before dropping a 4-1 decision to the Rangers the following night in New York City. Terrell Davis Womens Jersey . Vettel was 0.168 seconds faster than Red Bull teammate Mark Webber around the Suzuka circuit. Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was two tenths of a second off Vettel. "The car balance is decent, but I think we can still improve," Vettel said. http://www.broncosrookiestore.com/Broncos-Tom-Jackson-Jersey/ . The Celtics closed out their first preseason under Stevens on Wednesday night with a 101-97 victory over the Brooklyn Nets, who rested a lot of their lineup including former Celtics Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. DeMarcus Ware Youth Jersey . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. Steve Atwater Youth Jersey . Miller reached right to deflect Mikhail Grabovskis attempt with just over 2 minutes remaining in regulation, and then made two more saves in the shootout Sunday to give the Sabres a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals. In the global family of League of Legends, its clear that the major regions -- North America, Europe, China, Taiwan and South Korea -- get the most attention and marketing from developer Riot. But the family doesnt end there. The peripheral areas for LoL esports, called the Wildcard regions -- Brazil, Latin America North, Latin America South, Japan, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), Oceania, Turkey, and Southeast Asia -- have their own professional teams, organized seasons and representatives at prestigious events like the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) and World Championship. However, they have collectively been the textbook middle child: the neglected one, overshadowed by its brethren.Each year, Riot places a Wildcard team on a pedestal to showcase the ethnic diversity of the community, but that doesnt mean the team has an easier road to the big tournaments. While each major region gets a guaranteed spot, Wildcard teams not only have to conquer their own regions, they have to fight the other top teams of other Wildcard regions just to qualify for either MSI or Worlds.The process in Wildcard team selection has been far from perfect even as competitive standards in major regions continue to improve. In both the 2015 and 2016 International Wildcard Invitationals (IWCI), which is where Wildcard teams compete to qualify for MSI, there have been many problems that major regions dont run into anymore. Both the 2015 and 2016 IWCIs showcased different problems and raised important issues. The good news is Riot is amending mistakes and get the IWCI competitive standards up to code. However, the pace of improvement and its two-steps-forward-one-step-back process leave something to be desired.Wildcard Head Coaches Alexander Abaxial Haibel from INTZ and Josh Jish Carr-Hummerston from The Chiefs, and a player who spoke on condition of anonymity, wish to dispel some myths and discuss the real issues regarding the process of setting up the International Wildcard Invitational.The scheduling squeezeA major issue that popped up during the 2015 MSI was the lack of consistency in available preparation time between regions. Every region had a different length of time between the moment they qualified for MSI and the start of the tournament, ranging from five to 25 days. For Wildcard regions, this issue was even more complex. This is because qualifying teams from these regions had to first prepare for and win the IWCI tournament, another international event, before they could attend MSI.While some Wildcard regions like Japan and Turkey had longer stretches of time to prepare for the IWCI tournament at 23 and 17 days respectively, others ranged from about a nine to 12-day preparation period. Brazil had three days, less, if you include the actual travel time and jet lag accumulated by the travel.We managed to do some superficial research while on the plane, but only really what champions people played, not their team playstyle, which takes a lot more time, or key players. We also didnt have much time to think about and fix our mistakes from the [Circuito Brasileiro de League of Legends] final, said Coach Abaxial of INTZ, a Brazilian League of Legends team that won a slot in the 2015 IWCI event.Three days is not enough time to prepare for a second tournament on top of practicing and winning the finals of your own region. Even regions who had more time said that they were not properly able to prepare. Australias The Chiefs from the Oceanic Pro League (OPL) had 12 and 11 days to prepare for the MSI qualifiers in 2015 and 2016 respectively. While this was much more generous than INTZs three, 12 days can still be a struggle when preparing to face seven other regions teams.While our end goal during our domestic split is always beyond local teams, its hard to prepare for teams that arent the ones stopping you from making it internationally. So we used practically all of our energy to prepare for Legacy, our opponents in the [OPL] finals, and then [had] under 10 days to travel and prepare for seven other teams, from seven other regions, says Chiefs Coach Jish.The voices of the IWCI participants make it clear that they want more time, but most of all, the amount of time should be consistent across regions; this would make the tournament fair for all involved.Happily, conditions are getting better. In the 2016 season, the top team of each of the five major regions and the winner of the 2016 IWCI all had 11 to 17 days to prepare for MSI itself after qualifying. This is a great change, as it gave regions the same amount of time to prepare, boot camp, and travel to an international tournament.Some feel there is still room for improvement, however. I feel as though there should be a little longer delay between local and international events though, because we dont necessarily get the chance to prepare and improve on our previous issues. It becomes a series of band-aids and working out any simple fixes and tricks you can properly apply in 10 days before [playing] international teams, says Jish.It seems like a good goal would be to have a buffer of 22 to 28 days from each regions finals to the IWCI qualifier. At the same time, this ideal runs into issues of scheduling for each regions regular season. If each Wildcard region had 22 days to prepare for the IWCI, then their regular season would have to start a lot earlier. Otherwise, MSI and Worlds would need to be pushed back and it would be disruptive tto the major regions.ddddddddddddIn any case, so long as every region has the same amount of time to prepare for the IWCI, then Riot can at least ensure fairness. This year for the 2016 season, most Wildcard regions were given around two weeks except for Japan, Latin America North, and the GPL who each received six through eight days of preparation time. Clearly there has been improvement, but there is still a ways to go before this standard is universally achieved.A tale of two citiesAn important aspect for international competitions is making sure that the teams who fly out to compete have an adequate place to practice while preparing for the tournament. The general opinion was that the 2015 IWCI tournament in Istanbul had sufficiently good practice conditions while the 2016 IWCI tournament in Mexico City was far from ideal. Although Riot was responsive to the 2016 teams concerns, it was worrying that this years event was a step backward from 2015 in this respect.For IWCI 2015, they rented out a hotel basement and built temporary rooms, which worked out reasonably well. It wasnt perfect, but the chair and desk height, computers, and monitors were all fine. The rooms were also accessible 24/7 which is something you might not normally think about but was very helpful, says Abaxial.[In 2016,] Mexico at first was very bad, and we played in a condition at LAN cafes that I have never experienced before. Very hot, small, and dusty. Halfway through the tournament they fixed these [issues] and let us play in the Riot offices, says the anonymous IWCI player. In a reddit post from Adrian hatchy Widera, the Head Coach for Turkish team SuperMassive Esports, he commented on similar problems while dispelling some of the more exaggerated rumors, such as hearing gunshots in the area.I think the largest oversight for the practice conditions were that they werent sustainable to use over a long period of time. The heat and fans werent problematic when we first got there, but we were trying to put in 10+ hours each day prior to the event, which is where it started taking a toll on players/teams. The equipment in our facilities [was] completely fine, and if we had issues or concerns, like the initial 60hz monitors [whose refresh rate was too low], we could get things fixed through speaking to the cafe staff or Riot, says Jish.The problem of hostingThe teams practice conditions in Mexico were mitigated relatively quickly. However, given the small amount of time allotted to teams to prepare, it is a waste of two to three days for teams to have to recognize existing problems so that they can ask for a fix.I think Riot has definitely made large steps towards improving the conditions and events for Wildcard regions, although the expectation/standard of a premier region [like North America and Europe] isnt realistic. Outside of Brazil, no Wildcard office seems to have anywhere near the staff, resources, knowledge or ability to replicate that of the major leagues, says Jish.If conditions and facilities are not up to par in most Wildcard regions, whats the alternative? A possibility would be hosting the IWCI tournament in one of the major regions such as NA or EU, since expert staff and good environment conditions are readily available. However, to do so would present more challenges, and not just around scheduling.Generally, were always re-evaluating our process around our inter-regional events, and have considered a variety of options for IWC events, said Riot Games Communications Lead for Esports Nicola Piggot. We dont really want to artificially place them in the NA or EU studios, given that those regions dont have any teams competing in the event, and the local fans arent incentivized to attend without a hometown team, but we are considering a variety of other options to further develop those events.Standing united for a better futureAs of now, Riot cannot guarantee proper practice conditions for IWCI teams or standardized preparation time before IWCI. These issues are difficult to handle because of scheduling challenges with regards to when regular seasons would be held across regions, and as Jish mentioned, because only Brazil seems realistically able to meet the practice environment standards requested by coaches and players across the IWCI scene.The good news is that Riot is exzg this issue. With some more attention to detail, theres no reason that they cant help create dramatic improvements to the infrastructure of these international events; they can work towards ensuring and building upon the more favorable conditions of the 2015 IWCI and the fairer scheduling of the 2016 IWCI for the future. Hopefully, growth can be consistent moving forward and the Wildcard regions wont feel like they are subject to second-tier competitive conditions.Sure, the Wildcard regions arent the premier markets for Riots monetary investment compared to the major regions. However, having constantly prided themselves on LoLs cultural diversity across the globe -- including implementing culture-specific skins into the game -- and championing theirs as a worldwide esport, Riot needs to back those ideals with continued support for a fair competitive standard for these regions. Doing so will promote a stronger future for the whole ecosystem, not just smaller markets.. ' ' '