I've always wondered how the cyclists in the Tour de France put up with the obnoxious fans running along the road during the grueling mountain climbs. I thought it's just part of the sport, until last Friday. Somehow, we missed this amazing moment in PhotoBlog TDF posts and the Week in Sports Pictures.

Today, the Court of Arbitration for Sport postponed until November a hearing on Alberto Contador's doping violation in last year's Tour.

We missed this picture when it crossed the wire earlier this week. Michael Shaw has an interesting take on it today at BagNews:

There are so many spiritual/supernatural suggestions here, starting with halos, though the ring in the center also looks like one of those symbolic dark clouds a cartoonist will place over a character’s head.

Read more here.

Update, 3:37 p.m. ET:

Or see FOTO8's contrary take, via their Twitter feed:

@BagNewsNotes no, its a plain pic if an Sry exercise, not art or war actually, just PR. If you want to.discuss war why not tune in to it.

You don't have to love the Heat to respect this picture from Dec. 6, though I suspect nobody in Cleveland will want to look at it.

Rob Peterson, Senior Editor at the sports site Fanhouse, tracked down AP photographer Morry Gash to get the story behind the frame. And... let's just quote Peterson and say it was "borne of excellent planning sprinkled with a little luck":

There by Gash's toes was his Canon 5D Mark II, a camera outfitted with a wider-angle lens, synced to fire by radio remote control when he took pictures with the camera he held in his hand. As the play developed, Gash clicked off four or five shots narrowly focusing on James. At the time, he knew he had LeBron, but Gash didn't have an inkling Wade had entered the foreground. Keen-eyed observers watching the game live could see Wade go out of frame on the left of the screen with his arms extended. (Full Story)

We're a few days late with this news, but better late than never I guess.

The New York Times: Award to Artist Who Gives Slums a Human Face:

Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where he was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.

But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”

Read the rest of the story, and see more pictures, at the Times site.