Thursday, 6. August 2009, 13:16:34
Letting something brew is always a good thing. Even before this years Tour started, it was becoming a battle for the leader from within the Astana team, the usual 'doping' stories with Valverde banned pending a court case in Italy and a sniffling, coke induced Tom Boonen still allowed to ride (he was caught twice, lets remember that).
I was lucky enough to be in France whilst the tour started and it was great to see the captivation that the French public have for this 3 week event and it can only be eclipsed when Italy won the world cup last. I was there and it was off the scale. Regardless of what goes on in the press, this is still a great race.
The route map made this into an interesting tour. With the penultimate stage the 21km summit finish at Mont Ventoux hailed and the decisive stage and other punishing days in the Alps setting the stall for all out warfare. We were going to be made to wait - not doubt - for the final days.
So to the race. The first week is a chance for the sprinters to shine and for
Cancellara to sit happily in yellow. Zipping across the Cote d'Azur heading east towards Barcelona gave me the chance to catch the peleton in the town of Draguiganan. 40 minutes of waiting (and just missing the caravan for some free gifts) I saw 1 minute 20 seconds of action. Worth it.
I managed to get a video and some pictures:
FlickrNeedless to say, this and the next couple of stages were dominated by Columbia HTC's sprint train and
Mark Cavendish. He won two of the three sprints (one team time trial, the other a break away) and was beaten just once by
Thor Hushovd (oh, ITV commentators, its pronounced Hus-hovd, not Hush-ovd) in an uphill finish into Barcelona.
The first week also gave us the first glimpse of the Astana team during the team time trial. On paper they had it all, formidable time triallists and quite a large proportion of the old US Postal team still being lead by Johan Bruyneel. They won it - quite convincingly in the end - and the top ten became an Astana team sheet with 5 riders in it. Mixing up the equation was the surprise inclusion of
Bradley Wiggins. Was it just the good prologue?
The Pyrenees loomed first with a mountain finish and a number of cols to tackle . It was clear that the everyone would be watching each others moves, and you always got the feeling something would happen but it rarely did. The finish at Andorra saw Cadel Evans on a breakaway "similar to the last cigarette of a condemned man" as described by Cyril Guimard. Contador emulating what an Armstrong of old would have done by attacking the field with a couple of km's left to race away from his rivals and put some time between him and the rest. He jumped up to 2nd ovarall. The rest of the Pyrenees was uneventful, even the Col de Tourmalet did nothing to stir up any challenges.
After the first rest day the sprinters and breakaways were in the limelight during the transition phase to the Alps and it was a chance for a relatively unknown journeyman Rinaldo Nocentini to wear yellow for 7 days. After being set up in a breakaway in the Pyrenees, his AG2R team did everything they could to protect the jersey and everyone else happy to see him there. Cav took the first two sprints but still didn't get green. One piece of drama coming out of week 2 was between the sprinters. During one finish Cav was seen to have squeezed the Norwegian into the barriers and was disqualified. Big mouth Cav clained the Green jersey was now "stained". Nice Cav, how to make friends ....
As the Alps loomed there was a certain buzz of anticipation, The Schlecks knew they needed a couple of minutes on everyone else with their poor time trialling skills and a big result in their home country.
"Today's stage is a bit like a brothel” was how Bradley Wiggins described the queen stage with no less than 5 categorised climbs including the , the little known Col de Romme and the Colombiere .
Before this, we had seen Contador win on yet another summit finish in Verbier extending his lead to 1.35 over Armstrong and Wiggins. Straight after the rest day there was the Hors Category Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard and Petit-Saint-Bernard to tackle which was pretty uneventful (through retrospectively Astarloza who won was found to be doping).
The Queen stage certainly lived up to its name. To start, green jersey wearer Thor took it upon himself to start a breakaway and went over two first category cols and third second cat climb to gain some sprint points and to show to the peleton that its his Green jersey shown looking into the camera and grabbing his chest. Impressive ride and watching him descend was equally impressive, his bike handling skills in the wet were awesome.
Climbing the unknown Col de Romme, the attacks came. First from Sastre, then Frank Schleck and only brother Andy and AC could follow. This stayed the same over the final climb (the Colombiere) with Armstrong/Wiggins dropping over 3 minutes on the leaders.
It was clear Contador was not going to be beaten and memories of his famous bonk in Paris-Nice a distant memory. All other riders lost time, including Wiggins first bad day in the mountains.
All eyes turned to the last week. The 43km time trial around Lake Annecy and the final summit finish ontop of Ventoux. The time trial proved interesting viewing, led by Cancellara (who was having a really good tour with a prologue win and strong work for his Saxo bank team in the mountains) we saw Contador again assert his presence with an awesome time, both Armstrong and Wiggins claw back some time and places and Andy Schleck hold his 2nd place.
Ventoux is a legend. Tom Simpson died on this unforgiving mountain that gets temperatures in excess of 40degrees. Neither the wind or the sun played a part in this stage, it was just 21kms of climbing, attacking and sacrifices. You have to wonder how good Andy Schleck was. Did he need to wait for Frank who was clearly struggling when a stage win beckoned, and more importantly a chance to take AC's scalp. It was thought that Ventoux was to be the decider but the positions were already penned in. Wiggens scraped by in 4th with about 5 seconds to spare over Frank S. Kloden (once a leader, now a super-domestique) couldn't make up enough on Brad even and settled for 6th and Nibali after climbing well limited his loses.
The Tour finished as ever on the Champs Elysees where as promised Cav took his victory with noone else in sight. His lead out man taking second which just showed how strong Columbia were. No changes in the general classement meant the top 10 looked like this:
1. Alberto CONTADOR@ 85:48:35
2. Andy SCHLECK @ +00:04:11
3. Lance ARMSTRONG @ +00:05:24
4. Bradley WIGGINS @ +00:06:01
5. Frank SCHLECK @ +00:06:04
6. Andréas KLÖDEN @ +00:06:42
7. Vincenzo NIBALI @ +00:07:35
8. Christian VANDE VELDE @ +00:12:04
9. Roman KREUZIGER @ +00:14:16
10. Christophe LE MEVEL @ +00:14:25
Going up
Bradley Wiggins 4th place saw him get the best placed position for a Brit ever (along with Robert Millar).
Contador was abandoned by his team as they sided with Armstrong, he rode himself into the led and stayed there.
Armstrong with, all things considered still recovering from a broken collar bone was immense, 3 years out and 37 years of age didn't show at all.
Cavendish won a record 6 stages. Unbeatable and his Champs Elisse finish was electric. Great to watch, just turn it off before his interview.
Going down
Evans, Mechov I bet you wished you stayed at home. Denis, you were off your bike more than you were on it, do you need some stabilisers? Evans, “I'm not ill” Cadel complained about everything and even blamed his doctor for not being able to diagnose what was wrong. Er, your poor form?
Bruynel tried as hard as he could to put his old friend Lance in yellow. His new team radioshack stoll most of the lime light.
Garmin for chasing down big George Hincape and stopping him wearing yellow, if only for a day.
WIDGETIZE