It may be a rest day, but the show never ends for the riders in the world's greatest bike race. Unfortunately I can't give you a sneak peek backstage at that show, but today does provide a good opportunity to do a wrap-up of the Tour so far - and add updates on the news that hit the riders while they were off-duty.
By the end of Stage 9, 18 riders were no longer participating in the Tour de France. Of those 18, 6 have broken collarbones and another 8 have injuries sustained in the crashes. 1 has been timed out. Countless other riders are also in varying degrees of pain after the numerous crashes in this year's Tour.
Of the 22 teams, so far 3 have lost their main GC contenders (Astana lost Alexandre Vinokourov, Sky lost Bradley Wiggins and Omega Pharma-Lotto lost Jurgen van den Broeck) and two others look to be going the same way (Quickstep lost Tom Boonen and other GC rider Sylvain Chavanel is injured and riding badly; Radioshack have lost Jani Brajkovic and Chris Horner, Levi Leipheimer has lost a lot of time from crashes and Andreas Kloden went down in a crash). There are at most 6 teams who have escaped untouched by crashes or abandons: AG2R La Mondiale, FDJ, Lampre-ISD, Leopard Trek, Liquigas and Saur-Sojasun - touch wood, of course.
There will be at least one more rider who won't start Stage 10 - Alexandre Kolobnev, currently of Team Katusha, has left the Tour after testing positive to a banned substance, the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide. Kolobnev is now out of the Tour, whether voluntarily or at his team's insistence, and he has requested a test of his B-sample. If the B-sample also comes back positive, not only will Kolobnev be cast out of the team and fined five times his yearly salary, but he may also face sanctions on an international level.
There will be at least one more rider who won't start Stage 10 - Alexandre Kolobnev, currently of Team Katusha, has left the Tour after testing positive to a banned substance, the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide. Kolobnev is now out of the Tour, whether voluntarily or at his team's insistence, and he has requested a test of his B-sample. If the B-sample also comes back positive, not only will Kolobnev be cast out of the team and fined five times his yearly salary, but he may also face sanctions on an international level.
And lastly, after nine days of hard riding and some rather unexpected results, here is how the general classification looks now:
| Rider | Team | Time | Gap | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  VOECKLER Thomas | TEAM EUROPCAR | 38h 35' 11" | |||||||||||||||||
| 2. |  SANCHEZ Luis-Leon | RABOBANK CYCLING TEAM | 38h 37' 00" | + 01' 49" | ||||||||||||||||
| 3. |  EVANS Cadel | BMC RACING TEAM | 38h 37' 37" | + 02' 26" | ||||||||||||||||
| 4. |  SCHLECK Frank | TEAM LEOPARD-TREK | 38h 37' 40" | + 02' 29" | ||||||||||||||||
| 5. | SCHLECK Andy | TEAM LEOPARD-TREK | 38h 37' 48" | + 02' 37" | ||||||||||||||||
| 6. |  MARTIN Tony | HTC - HIGHROAD | 38h 37' 49" | + 02' 38" | ||||||||||||||||
| 7. |  VELITS Peter | HTC - HIGHROAD | 38h 37' 49" | + 02' 38" | ||||||||||||||||
| 8. | KLÖDEN Andréas | TEAM RADIOSHACK | 38h 37' 54" | + 02' 43" | ||||||||||||||||
| 9. |  GILBERT Philippe | OMEGA PHARMA - LOTTO | 38h 38' 06" | + 02' 55" | ||||||||||||||||
| 10. |  FUGLSANG Jakob | TEAM LEOPARD-TREK | 38h 38' 19" | + 03' 08" |
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