Month: July 2010 (Page 4 of 7)

Did you know professional bike racing can be a contact sport?  If you watched today’s stage, you do.

At the end of Stage 11, approximately 400m from the finish Mark Renshaw, HTC-Columbia, got into position to lead out his sprinter, Mark Cavendish. Julian Dean, Garmin-Transitions, was also vying for real estate to get his man, sprinter Tyler Farrar, into position for the sprint finish.

Renshaw leaned into Dean and head-butted him three times in an attempt to move Dean off – giving Cavendish ample room and holding Dean and Farrar off.  Dean withstood the interference and led out Farrar, then he peeled off and Farrar made his move. Renshaw looking over his shoulder saw Farrar starting to sprint out.  At this point Renshaw moved to squeeze Farrar into the barriers, greatly impeding Farrar’s ability to sprint. Cavendish ultimately took the win, his 3rd Tour win this year and 13th in 3 years, Alessandro Petacchi came in 2nd and Farrar 3rd.

After reviewing the sprint, race officials made the decision to disqualify Renshaw and eject him from the Tour. In my opinion, they made this decision because of a few possible reasons.  One, although sprinters do resort at times to pushing with their heads or arms/shoulders to back another rider off, I’ve never seen a rider head-butt repeatedly like Renshaw did. Two, the deliberate move to push Farrar toward the barrier was a blatant attempt to impede his ability to sprint. Three, the aggressive riding by Renshaw not only put Farrar and Dean at risk, but also put others in peloton at risk of crashing. Either one of the moves (head-butts or blocking Farrar into the barrier) would have likely resulted in Renshaw being relegated to last place, but the two aggressive acts together were more than race officials could accept.

I tend to agree with them; if Renshaw was only relegated to last place, it really would not serve as much of a punishment or more importantly, deterrant from future reckless acts. To take the victory away from Cavendish would not be fair to him. By removing Renshaw from the Tour, officials have sent a clear and strong message to sprinters and their teams – this behavior will not be tolerated. In the end, the decision of the Tour officials keeps the riders safer and makes for a better Tour.

Other than the excitement at the finish, it was a fairly easy day for the peloton and favorites. There was the requisite breakaway, as well as the routine catch – due to the fast tempo set by the sprinters teams in pursuit of a bunch sprint.

The day was so mellow for the peloton many riders were seen chatting with riders of other teams, including rivals Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador.

There was no change in the GC for the main rivals, the Green jersey exchanged hands in what is a tight competition. Petacchi edged out Thor Hushovd to take the jersey.

Stage 12
Tomorrow’s stage will be interesting. Although there are no category 1 or HC climbs, there are 5 mid-range climbs.  Additionally, it is a long day – 210km – in what will be very hot temperatures. The finish could provide us with a lot of excitement – it’s short but steep (10% gradient). After a long, hot day in the saddle, I expect the last climb to split the field up further. There will no doubt be breakaways.

This is a stage, depending on how he is feeling, that Cadel Evans could redeem his Tour – if he could manage to pull out a win or a top finish, which would cut his time in the GC. Team Radio Shack could go for another stage win sending perhaps Chris Horner in the breakaway.

Stage 12, although not one of the most difficult, could present problems for some resulting in a splintering of the peloton and a selection on the very last climb. Look for Contador and Schleck be in the very front, this stage will not catch them off guard.  A team that has struggled thus far in the Tour could look to this stage for glory – perhaps Garmin-Transitions or Team Radio Shack or BMC.

One thing is certain, Stage 12 will not be the easy day in the saddle that Stage 11 was.

As predicted Team Radio Shack got a rider in the breakaway, Sergio Paulinho, and managed to pull out their first stage win. Paulinho narrowly edged out Vasili Kiryienka, Caisse d’Epargne, at the line. Both riders were part of a 6-man breakaway that included 2 French riders who both hoped to bring home a stage win on Bastille Day.  Fortunately for Team Radio Shack, they were unsuccessful – besides the French almost never win on Bastille Day! 

Team Radio Shack very much needed the win – in what has been a very disappointing Tour thus far. Part of that is obviously Lance Armstrong losing any chance for a place on the podium in Paris. Much of it has to do with the overall performance of the Team. Coming in to the Tour Team Radio Shack was thought to be “scary strong". That along with Johan Bruyneel, arguably the best tactician in professional bike racing today, made them look hard to beat. 

Goals have changed for Radio Shack as a result of Armstrong slipping out of contention. Goals now are for stage wins, the team classification and if they get lucky, 3rd place for Levi Leipheimer who currently sits in 6th overall.

Otherwise, it was a normal day in the peloton at the Tour de France. There was a crash – this one involving 4 riders. All were able to remount and return to the race. The team of the yellow jersey, Saxo Bank, controlled the race sitting on the front protecting Andy Schleck. Alberto Contador, 2nd place to Schleck, stayed in the front as well with his teammates. Armstrong rode in the front, as did Leipheimer. Although there was a category 1 climb, there was no splitting in the peloton because Saxo Bank maintained a very moderate tempo. There were a lot of tired legs and bodies today and the peloton raced accordingly.

Stage 11
Tomorrow’s stage is a day for the sprinters and a race for points in the Green jersey chase. Look for the breakaway to be caught before the finish. It has been several days since a true sprint finish and the sprinters will not be denied.

Stage 9 confirmed what Stage 8 alluded to – the Tour de France champion this year will be either defending champion, Alberto Contador or Saxo Bank’s, Andy Schleck. If those two stay healthy with no mishaps, it will come down to mano-a-mano in the Pyrenees.

Third place on the podium is still up for grabs. I see Sammy Sanchez, Denis Menchov, and Levi Leipheimer all having a chance. Sanchez and Menchov are about even, with Leipheimer a minute back.

There were many questions about the strength of the Astana team prior to the Tour. Daniel Novarro and Paolo Tiralongo keep answering those questions soldiering Contador up the climbs – particularly Novarro. The pace he sets is just brutal knocking everyone off the back except a few elites. He did it today and did the same thing two days ago – setting a murderous tempo for what must seem like forever to the guys try to keep up behind him.

There were so many impressive moments in today’s stage. Schleck repeatedly attacking Contador, trying to shake him loose, but to no avail – then dropping everyone else from the group – was an impressive display of strength. It was an impressive display of race tactics when they decided to work together to cut their time loss to the 4-man breakaway – and then catching them 1km from the finish.

Impressive was Saxo Bank’s Jens Voight’s performance today. Voight is the epitome of the type of rider you need as a teammate if you are a serious contender. No one works harder for his team leader then Jens Voight.  He turned himself inside out for Schleck today; it was just an unbelievably gutsy performance. Voight got in the breakaway for the sole purpose of being down the road near the summit of the Col de Madeleine so that when Schleck got to that point he could work for him. Voight had to be near exhaustion, but when Schleck approached with Contador, somehow Jens found something, got in front and paced Schleck up the climb. After pacing Schleck for several kilometers Voight was so spent he almost did a track stand (complete stop while on bike) because he simply had nothing left.

Cadel Evans is a great bike racer, currently holding the world road champion jersey. Evans had a very bad Tour last year, but was optimistic about his chances for this year. In the past, Evans did not have a team that could adequately support him and yet he finished in 2nd place twice. There were questions about how well BMC would perform today in protecting the yellow jersey, but they did a solid job early in the stage setting the tempo on the climb and protecting Evans. Unfortunately, Evans had a bad day (turns out he fractured his left elbow in Sunday’s crash) and was dropped off the back. He lost 8 minutes today and with it his chance for the Tour de France win. He was obviously devastated, starting the day with the yellow jersey, and losing 8 minutes to the new leader – Andy Schleck. When Evans crossed the finish line teammate Mauro Santambrogio tried to comfort him.

Stage 10
Tomorrow is Bastille Day, look for a breakaway with riders from the French teams – Cofidis, Francaise des Jeux and Bbox-Bouygues – perhaps "little Tommy Voeckler" (Phil and Paul’s nickname for him) from Bbox or Sylvan Chavanel will have a go at another stage win.

Look for Team Radio Shack to try and get 1-2 guys in the break.  They need to salvage something, a stage win would be huge.

*Pictures are from Getty Images

I hope you were able to get some rest on rest day. I know I certainly needed a rest from writing, but then here I am anyway.

Just a little heads up about the stage tomorrow – in one word – difficult. In a few more words – difficult, but not the type of stage that should dislodge any of the true contenders. With that said, some that look like contenders may lose significant time. Plus, as Stage 8 taught us, anything can happen to anyone – including the true contenders.

On Stage 9, there are four climbs: Col de la Colombiere (Cat. 1), Col des Aravis (Cat. 2), Col des Saisies (Cat. 1), and Col de la Madeleine (HC). HC is Hors Cat̩gorie, which is French for Р"so difficult it is beyond category".

Unlike Stages 8 and 7, Stage 9 will not feature an uphill finish. The finish is actually 40km from the summit of the Madeleine – a harrowing technical descent that flattens out about 10km from the end. If the area is not too heavily treed, we should get good video coverage of the riders flying down the descent. You will not believe how fast they go!

In tomorrow’s stage we will likely see a breakaway of riders in search of points or a win, and multiple splits in the main field along the climbs. The biggest selection of riders will occur on the last climb of the day – the monstrous Madeleine.

Something to keep in mind is once the riders reach the summit then start their descent towards the finish, those that were dropped due the climb may be able to rejoin. Meaning that time lost on the climb may be regained on the descent – depending on the ability of the rider to negotiate this very tricky descent.

Although these climbs are very challenging, they are not the toughest that riders will face in this year’s Tour. That distinction belongs to the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, which the riders will climb twice this year.

There very well will be riders finish outside the time limit for Stage 9 and thus get eliminated.

One other thing, although it is counterintuitive, Tour riders often have a difficult time racing the day after a rest day. A day of (active) rest can actually leave them feeling sluggish and slow.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

A famous line that aptly describes Stage 8 for two of this year’s favorites to win the Tour – Lance Armstrong and Andy Schleck.

Best of times for Andy Schleck, who won his first stage ever at the Tour de France by taking off from Contador so strongly that Contador couldn’t match the effort. Schleck is young and his Tour career is ahead of him.

The worst of times for 7 time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. He retired in 2005 after winning a record setting 7th Tour in a row. Late in 2008 Armstrong announced he was coming back to racing – and that he did – finishing with an impressive 3rd place in the 2009 Tour de France. He hadn’t had the time to train as fully as necessary to contend for the win, but with a year to do so hopes were high for this year’s Tour.

Today all hope for another Tour victory or podium placement were buried when he finished the worst stage of his Tour de France career – 11:00+ behind the GC favorites and slipping to 39th place overall.

Lance Armstrong looked solid yesterday. Today’s stage however, started out badly when there was an unexplained crash at the 6km mark. He avoided serious trouble by moving to the grass to bypass the fallen riders. Unfortunately, Armstrong crashed a little later just before the start of the Col de la Ramaz climb when he apparently clipped his pedal in the roundabout while going around 40mph. He said the next thing he knew his tire had come off and he was rolling on the ground. It was a hard fall, but he got up, shaken, but otherwise okay.  After getting a new bike from the team car, he remounted and his teammates proceeded to try to pull him back up to the main group.

Armstrong made it back to the main group, but just as the pace was quickening to begin the climb to the summit of Ramaz. Team Sky went to the front to do the pacemaking and continued to turn up the pace. 

As the pace went up, so did the gradient of the climb building to 9-10%.  Saxo Bank took over the pacemaking maintaining the fast tempo.  Armstrong, who was already suffering due to the effort to get back to the group, dropped off the back as did others, among them, Chavanel in yellow.

As the select group with all of the favorites (minus Armstrong) neared the summit, Chris Horner with Team Radio Shack attempted to pull Armstrong back to the group.  The gap between Armstrong and the favorites however continued to build to around one minute.

It was hoped that Armstrong would be able to close the gap on the descent and rejoin the select group, but he was unable to close in – still off the group by about a minute.  Fortunately for Team Radio Shack, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden were in the elite group with all of the GC favorites.

Unfortunately, for Armstrong things went south again.  At the summit of Les Gets, still at around one minute back, an Euskaltel-Euskadi rider in front of him missed getting his feed bag and crashed.  Although Armstrong didn’t go down, his bike did.  With hands on hips in seeming disbelief, he stood for a minute then untangled his bike and remounted.  At that point he must have known it was over. 
 
At the base of the climb to Avoriaz, Contador moved his team up to the front (unbelievably he had 3 teammates left) and turned up the pace. This put other riders in difficulty, but Schleck, Evans and the new leader of Radio Shack, Leipheimer, hung on.  One by one the group picked up the remains of what had been a 7 rider breakaway.
 
About this time it looked as if the favorites would all ride in together.  Contador must have been thinking something similar because he turned to look over his left shoulder to see who was left.  Schleck was watching and right when Contador looked back to his left, Schleck attacked to the right.  Only Sammy Sanchez could follow – Contador either couldn’t or chose not to respond – nor did Evans, Ivan Basso, or Denis Menchov.
 
Andy Schleck took his first stage ever at a Tour de France by beating Sanchez at the line.  It was a great piece of racing when he took the opportunity to gain time on Contador and Evans.  Even more fortunate was the fact that the yellow jersey went to Cadel Evans and not him.  Reason being – the team with the yellow has to do the work at the front of the peloton.  Evan’s BMC squad will have that responsibility when the race continues on Tuesday with another stage in the Alps. 
 
Tomorrow is a rest day.  Don’t be fooled by the term, they don’t race, but they do ride on rest days.  The body doesn’t take kindly to hard racing, rest and then hard racing again.  Think of it as an active rest day.

*Pictures are from Getty Images