The fat lady in France, the one dressed in yellow, she’s singing.

Short of something catastrophic, Chris Froome will win the 100th Tour de France. I said it after Stage 8 and all he did in the time-trial today is add to his lead.

Froome’s closest rival Alejandro Valverde, is 3:25 down. That isn’t time Valverde is likely to make up on him. Sure, there is still a battle for the top 2-5 spots, with only seconds separating them. There is also more exciting racing and courageous individual efforts still to come, but no story of the Tour is as compelling as the race for Yellow.

Instead of that tight race for the yellow jersey we were hoping for, the biggest question floating around Tour de France fandom is whether Froome and Sky in general are clean or have their “marginal gains” – which aren’t marginal at all in reality – come as the result of performance enhancing drugs?

I’ve stated how I feel previously – to me the data – past and present – speaks for itself. People much more knowledgeable than me have written extensively about it so I’ve decided to post excerpts from a couple of excellent articles I’ve recently read.

Anti-doping expert Dr. Michael Puchowicz (@veloclinic on Twitter) wrote at Outside Online:

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“The simplest place to start the analysis is with Froome’s time itself. He took 23:14 to cover the 8.9 km distance at an average gradient of 7.46 percent. AX3 has been included in the Tour five times, three times during the doping era (2001, 2003, and 2005) and twice in the “new generation” (2010 and 2013). With this context in mind, we pulled the top 10 times from cycling archivist @ammattipyoraily‘s AX3 Domaines All-Time Top 100 List:

1. Laiseka 22:57, 2001
2. Armstrong 22:59, 2001
3. Froome 23:14, 2013
4. Ulrich 23:17, 2003
5. Zubeldia 23:19, 2003
6. Ulrich 23:22, 2001
7. Armstrong 23:24, 2003
8. Vinokourov 23:34, 2003
9. Basso 23:36, 2003
10. Armstrong 23:40, 2005

Aside for Froome’s time, every single performance in the top 10 has come from a rider during cycling’s known doping era. With the 3rd fastest ever, his time beat the top efforts from Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, and even beat two of three times for Armstrong.”

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I also recommend reading Ross Tucker’s blog “The Science of Sport” and following him (@scienceofsport) and Puchowicz (@veloclinic) on Twitter for their insights.

It is encouraging to know that there are fans and journalists studying and analyzing available data on riders in an effort to identify performances that appear to be “enhanced” i.e., “not normal”.

When organizations charged with performing the watchdog function don’t, citizens and journalists must do what they can to shine the spotlight when and where it is needed. That is precisely what Puchowicz, Tucker and others are trying to do.

Just like many of us, they love the sport of cycling and want to see it get beyond the culture of doping so prevalent in its past and to whatever extent it still is.

Tucker on Science of Sport put it more eloquently when he said:

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“Cycling is where it is, in part, because too many people who might have added value early were silenced or cast aside as being problematic, unwanted because they ‘spat in the soup’.  The result, to paraphrase a piece by Paul Kimmage, is that the denial of doping hurt cycling more than doping.  And the easiest form of denial is not to openly deny doping ("It doesn’t happen"), it’s to distract from the debate by diverting questions and pointing to others, which seems, in my opinion, to happen too often.  We all hope, even the most cynical, that the riders we watch today are clean, or at least cleaner than those of ten years ago.  The mere existence of ongoing debate is, I hope, indicative that people want change and want to believe.  Few are maliciously cynical, even if they have by now forgotten their real purpose of becoming vocally anti-doping.

And so I would hope that those who defend the sport will at least find it possible to recognize the origins of the skepticism, and why they should not be trying to silence or divert the questions and allegations, but rather encourage them and heed the solutions they may reveal.  The mistrust of cycling can be turned into constructive feedback, unless it is diverted through defensiveness.”

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Sprinter extraordinaire, Mark Cavendish did something today that would have resulted in most other sprinters being disqualified from the stage at a minimum or from the Tour as has happened in the past  (Mark Renshaw in 2010 for one). For Cavendish though, there were no consequences to his actions.

A video is worth a thousand words so see for yourself in this video by NBC Sports and Steephilltv:

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Here’s a video from YouTube (CanalF10) from the 2010 Tour when Renshaw, Cavendish’s teammate at the time was disqualified from the Tour and sent home for head-butting:

In my mind Cavendish should have been disqualified from the sprint (resulting in no place and no points) at a minimum. What he did was far worse than Renshaw’s behavior in 2010 yet Cav gets off scott-free.

Excitement and drama kicks off the 2nd week of the Tour today in what we expected to end in a “normal” bunch sprint.

Stage 10 started with a break of 5 riders getting away early. The peloton let them go and then proceeded to bring them back – the usual cat and mouse game. The break never had a chance unless there was either a peloton pileup or a peloton breakup by crosswinds. Neither happened so when the time was right the peloton caught the break and the sprinters teams came to the front.

The wind played a factor in that the GC favorites teams wanted to keep them at the front, sprinters teams wanted to keep their sprinters at the front and had to catch the break – all of which meant the peloton was tightly packed and pace was high. Tensions were definitely high.

Lotto-Belisol and Argos-Shimano have well organized leadouts for their sprinters. Cavendish for the most part does not. Today Greipel and Kittel were delivered perfectly, while Cavendish had to fend for himself. He didn’t have much trouble doing it did he. Regardless though, he has to be frustrated with his team QuickStep and his lack of stage wins. That frustration had to play a part in his shoving Tom Veelers.

Cav being Cav, he said he did nothing wrong. Tour officials doing what they do, protecting the Tour, confirmed through their actions (lack of) that he did nothing wrong. I don’t know how anyone can watch that first video and say he didn’t deliberately put his shoulder into Veelers. Make sure to see the front angle at 1:25.

Stage 11 is a 33k individual time-trial. You have to expect Chris Froome to take more time. Tomorrow should be beautiful, finishing at Mont Saint Michel. Hope they all finish before the tide comes in.

Brilliant video! Worth a watch by Tour fans and novices alike. (via crankpunk.com)

Stage 9 was filled with excitement and great racing. Jonathon Vaughters said that Garmin-Sharp’s riders would cause chaos in the peloton and they delivered on that promise today. Their reward for their attacking style was the stage win for Dan Martin.

There were fireworks from the beginning of Stage 9. Saxo-Tinkoff and Movistar worked together at the front; setting a high tempo they isolated GC leader Chris Froome on the first Category 1 climb as his lieutenants (including the second placed Richie Porte) dropped by the way side.

Between the attacking tactics of the Garmin-Sharp riders and the Spanish armada formed by Saxo and Movistar Sky didn’t know what hit them.

All the strength and control Sky exhibited yesterday was non-existent today. Needless to say I was happy about that as were most Tour fans I would guess.

The yellow jersey was already isolated and it was early in the stage. Movistar and Saxo had Froome right where they wanted him – all alone – while Movistar leader Alejandro Valverde still had 3 of his lieutenants and Saxo-Tinkoff leader Alberto Contador had 2 of his.

As you would imagine there were a number of attacks off the front before things settled down somewhat into a 4 man break including Pierre Rolland and Ryder Hesjedal. Rolland picked up enough points to take back the polka-dot jersey from Froome. Other chase groups formed then faded, getting swallowed up or dropped by the main group with the yellow jersey and most of the favorites. Froome’s teammates were never able to catch back up.

Valverde and two teammates attacked the yellow jersey group, only Froome gave chase, easily catching them. Valverde and company and Froome came together before the start of the 2nd Category 1 climb, Col de Peyresourde. Next up was the Col de Azat, the 2nd to last climb of Stage 9.

In my mind it was do or die for Valverde/Movistar and Contador/Saxo. They had Froome just where they wanted him – solo – and Movistar particularly had the manpower to hurt him. Regardless, they didn’t attack, instead they rode tempo, and not surprisingly Froome was more than happy to sit back while Saxo and Movistar took turns at the front.

They had a shot and they didn’t take it. By the time Movistar did attack (with Quintana) it was late, on the last climb and easier for Froome to fight off than it would have been on the Azet.

It was a missed opportunity and one they may not get again. Instead of riding tempo, Movistar should have attacked Froome repeatedly, forcing Froome to give chase and thus wearing him down until he couldn’t follow any longer.

Apparently Valverde/Movistar was happy to drop Porte and move Valverde into the #2 spot rather than to go for the top spot and yellow jersey. With an individual time-trial on Wednesday Froome will surely increased his hold on yellow over Valverde. Don’t say you didn’t have a chance to take time Movistar.

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Garmin-Sharp on the other hand played every card they had. They saved their last best card, Dan Martin, for a final move. After the attacks by Quintana had played themselves out and Froome had apparently saved the yellow Martin attacked, with only Fuglsang following. They quickly opened up a gap on the main group as they worked together heading for the finish.

Martin played it perfectly, sitting on Fulgsang’s wheel until just the right moment when he attacked and took the stage win. A thrilling finish to an exciting stage.

There’s a rest day tomorrow (yeah!) and then the Tour heads north for a sprint stage.

More fireworks next Sunday when the Tour goes to Mont Ventoux. Team Sky will have one less rider protecting their hold on yellow; Vasili Kiryienka was the only rider to not make the time cut. Sky had a bad day, could have been a really bad day, but it no doubt was a wakeup call.

Makes me smile.