An exciting day on the Tour! Not surprising considering the Tour has finally entered its exciting phase: THE MOUNTAINS (cue dramatic music). Surprisingly, and somehow not surprisingly, today's drama came about because of the breakaway.
For yes, again today we had a breakaway in the Tour de France. Quel surprise. This was by far the biggest breakaway of this year's Tour, comprising around 10 riders from a similar number of teams. Team Sky was represented in their first breakaway for the Tour, being forced to change their tactics after the withdrawal of team leader Brad Wiggins due to injury, while Team Cofidis had two riders out the front. Leaping off after 8 kilometres, they built up a lead of around seven kilometres at its height.
The most puzzling part of the day's stage that has kept commentators talking was the tactics of Team BMC. The entire team of Aussie Cadel Evans moved up to the front of the peloton and took up the pace-making for almost the entire stage. BMC was joined in the later sections by Garmin-Cervelo, making a token effort at defending the yellow jersey worn by their sprinter Thor Hushovd, which most people were sure Hushovd would lose at the end of the stage, possibly to Evans himself.
There was nothing much exciting to report until the mountains, when the peloton with Garmin leading began to close in on the breakaway, and young American rider Tejay van Garderen decided that he could do better on his own. The HTC rider moved off, and set such a high pace that the rest of the breakaway struggled to follow. Soon it was only Movistar's Rui da Costa who could keep up, and the two raced away up the small slope towards Super-Besse.
Meanwhile, some of the other riders wanted in on the breakaway action. Johnny Hoogerland, leader of the polka-dot jersey competition leapt off the front of the peloton with a friend, and began chasing down the two leaders, van Garderen and da Costa, as well as the three riders that the pair had dropped off. But then Astana's top rider, Alexandre Vinokourov, decided it was his day and made his own move. While Hoogerland never got far - he bridged the gap to one of the chase groups - Vinokourov was a much tougher competitor.
Soon it was chaos for media and spectators alike, with so many small groups of riders moving up and down between the two leaders and the main peloton that it became extremely difficult to know who was where and with what time gap. But one theme became very apparent - Vinokourov was closing in. Portuguese da Costa clearly didn't like this idea, and surged ahead so quickly that this time, despite being the man to counter any individual moves in his original breakaway group, van Garderen couldn't follow.
Vinokourov soon passed van Garderen, and by the time da Costa passed beneath the flamme rouge signalling one kilometre to go, he could have turned his head and seen Vino. But everyone was so focused on the battle for supremacy at the front that no one had noticed that the peloton was rearing its speedy head again. Though no one wanted to pace the peloton towards actively chasing, the riders were moving very fast; so fast, in fact, that they'd made up all but a minute of da Costa's lead.
As Vinokourov passed under the flamme rouge himself, the peloton was suddenly there behind him, and Vino suddenly wasn't. Though no-one could have hoped to catch Rui da Costa at that point, thus claiming Portugal a stage win for the second Tour in a row, the front of the peloton was now fighting it out for the other placings. Philippe Gilbert suddenly found himself with the legs and went from behind, pounding right up to the finish line and claiming second place, 12 seconds behind da Costa.
But all eyes were on the front of the peloton, where Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador were eyeing each other off, neither ready to make the first move, Cadel Evans sitting right behind them. Contador decided to go for it, but never got far with Andy clinging to his wheel like a limpet and Cadel still right behind him. Riders began going past the three favourites in their elaborate dance of tactics, and suddenly Cadel decided this wasn't good enough. One could almost see his thought process as he rode - "They're going right past us! You guys don't wanna do anything about this? Fine, I'll do it myself." And suddenly Evans leapt forward onto the back of the riders surging ahead, so fast that Contador and Schleck seemed to stunned to follow. Evans took third place on the stage, three seconds behind Gilbert, but he gained no time overall as the peloton followed him across the line.
Most unexpectedly for most (but not here!) Tour leader Thor Hushovd, best known as a sprinter, was able to keep pace with the main field all the way to Super-Besse and finished in the peloton, losing no time to the GC contenders and thus keeping his yellow jersey a little longer. Though clearly not able to wear the jersey through the Pyrenees, it now looks much more possible that Hushovd will wear his yellow up until we reach them. And as for the three main boys? Well, Cadel looks in spantabulous form this year, though Contador looks a bit off, and Andy is playing it far too cautious to tell yet. But all will be clear when we reach the Pyrenees...
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