It's called the Tour de France, and it tours France, but that doesn't mean that it tours all of France, or only France. The same as last year's prologue was in Holland, this year's Tour took a small detour - into Italy. The way out of Italy will include one of the most anticipated moments of this year's Tour - the Col du Galibier. But riding into Pinerolo will be only marginally less exciting than riding out of it.
It took a fair bit of work to get the day's breakaway going, always too big to safely get away, but 14 riders finally went off the front, including FDJ leader Sandy Casar, Sky sprinter Edvald Boasson Hagen and Quicksteps's French national champion Sylvain Chavanel. Building up their lead as they climbed, they were soon individually pursued by AG2R's Nicolas Roche, Tour stalwart Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Quick Step climber Kevin de Weert, who never came close to joining them.
Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) managed to break off the front and build up a 43-second lead on the descent, but was picked up again by the breakaway as they again began descending. Sylvain Chavanel then had his shot at solo glory 4.5 kilometres from the end of the final climb, but young Norwegian 'sprinter' Eddy Boasson Hagen, who is proving himself to be much more of an all-around GC guy this Tour, simply wasn't having any of it. Shutting Chavanel down promptly, he just kept right on going and soon found himself alone. The 24-year-old from Lillehammer paced himself into Pinerolo to eventually take a hard-won stage victory, which had me very happy after yesterday's heart-breaking defeat on the road to Gap. The Tour first-timer now has two TdF stage wins under his belt and he is already promising to be absolutely deadly in a few years' time.
In the meantime, back in peloton-land the kids were having fun. Alberto Contador (Saxobank-Sungard), on the back foot after his huge time losses from the first week, started playing some games on the way up the Col de Pramartino, and when he threw himself into the descent only Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) felt like joining him. Cadel Evans, as he later revealed, was trapped behind Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek), a notorious not-so-great descender, when Contador made his move and as such couldn't follow.
The descent was a tricky, technical one, and none would know this better than Saur-Sojasun's Jonathan Hivert. Taking every possible risk as he raced down the mountain in pursuit of Edvald Boasson Hagen, the Frenchman missed a corner and went flying off into the woods alongside the road. He was clearly up and riding shortly after because he did the same thing on another corner and rode neatly into someone's backyard through the fortunately open gate! He wasn't alone. A few minutes later the yellow of Thomas Voeckler appeared next to the parked car in the same backyard, although this time there was a spectator, possibly the homeowner himself, lending a hand to get the maillot jaune back on the road.
With Alberto and Samuel ahead of them and Voeckler losing time on his detour, the group of Cadel and the Schleck brothers, along with the other top names of the Tour, kept pounding their way down the other side of the mountain, trying not to lose too much time to the defending champion. The effort, led by Cadel, didn't seem to be going too well, as Contador and Sanchez were approaching Pinerolo without the other riders in sight. The Spanish pair, working together against the Luxembourg brothers and Aussie battler, were rounding the final corners to the finish line in the middle of town. Then just at the heart-breaking moment when the pair rounded the corner into the finishing straight and your two favourites were going to lose some time, the camera angle shifted to show the two racing forwards - with the other group rounding the corner behind them. Somehow Cadel had dragged everyone up to catch the Olympic and Tour de France champions shortly before they hit the finishing line. Cadel and Andy retained the same times compared to Contador, who must have been shattered that his near-successful breakaway was so neatly destroyed so near the end.
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