Today was what can only be termed an interest day. Perhaps ‘interesting’ is a little mild, but it covers a stage in which there were surprises, no drama, and nothing shocking, but merely interesting. It seems fairly safe to say that the Tour de France is now effectively over, and the days to come nothing more than filler until the race arrives in Paris.
Stage 17 was the final day of mountains for the Tour, traversing the Pyrénées from Bagnère-de-Luchon to Peyragudes. This Tour seems to have been characterised by breakaways, even in the mountains, for the attacks began as soon as the stage did yet again. It wasn’t until the 24 kilometre mark that a group managed to stay away, another large group containing around 20 riders including a few strong riders. The group held a slim lead over the peloton as they approached the top of the first climb for the day, the Category 1 Col du Mente.
Pierre Rolland (Europcar) sprinted away from the group as they approached the col’s King of the Mountain point, but he was chased down and caught by the two rivals for the polka-dot jersey, Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana), Voeckler managing to outsprint the Swede for the 10 points. There was a lot of shuffling of the breakaway on the way down the Col du Mente, which eventually left seven riders with a 40’ advantage over the Sky-led peloton. A counter-attack soon formed, 10 riders sitting 30’ ahead of the peloton and one 1’00” behind the leading seven.
The positions on the road hadn’t changed as the leaders reached the second climb of the day. Voeckler sprinted out from behind Kessiakoff to lead the race over the second category climb around the 55 kilometre mark of the stage. Chasing them over the top were the 10 poursuivants, 40 seconds behind, with the pursuing peloton another 50 seconds behind them. It wasn’t long before the race referees called all the cars out from between the first two groups on the road, their premonition being fulfilled 68 kilometres in, swelling the leading group to 17.
The number of riders made no difference to Voeckler and Kessiakoff, still locked in their silent battle for polka-dot points. Kessiakoff began the sprint for the points on offer atop the Cote des Burs, but Voeckler surprised him from behind and outsprinted him again. The peloton passed over the top a solid 3’00” behind the leaders, but that advantage was down to 2’15” as they approached the intermediate sprint. The breakaway was disinterested in the sprint points, sweeping through without any fuss and cleaning up all the points on offer, leaving the peloton nothing to sprint for when they swept through two minutes later.
The feed zone five kilometres on caused some trouble, World Champion Mark Cavendish and Sky teammate Richie Porte taking a tumble. Neither was seriously hurt and, mechanical troubles solved, both rejoined the race quickly without incident. The race was already beginning the ascent of the hors catégorie Port de Balés, the climb splintering the leading group into a fluid group of two or three riders leading two smaller chases further on down the climb.
Then Rui Costa (Movistar) leapt into a solo ride at the front of the stage, sitting a few hundred metres ahead of the next group on the road. The reason soon became clear: teammate Alejandro Valverde similarly leapt off the front and easily bridged the gap to Costa, leaving his teammate behind when Costa could no longer pace him onwards up the mountain. With a 2’20” lead over the peloton, Valverde scooped up the 25 points at the top of the Port de Balés and began racing the 32 kilometres towards the stage finish.
The peloton continued bearing down on the remainder of the breakaway, slowly picking up riders one by one as the yellow jersey group continued towards Peyragudes. Soon it was just Valverde in his time trial up the front, followed by Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) at 2’00” and Costa at 2’18” ahead of the peloton, with only 20 or so kilometres to go in the stage. Costa was the next to go, the peloton sweeping past with riders dropping out the back, unable to keep up with Team Sky and Liquigas-Cannondale’s pacemaking.
One of those soon to go was defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC). The 35-year-old was unable to keep up with the pace in the mountains yesterday due to stomach problems and still seemed to be unwell today, disappearing discreetly to leave young teammate Tejay van Garderen to continue on without him.
An attack from Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto Belisol) got a response from Bradley Wiggins (Sky), the yellow jersey wearer stepping up the pace so much that the leading group was reduced to just eight riders. Chris Froome (Sky) kept the pace so high that everyone was dropped except for his team leader, the only rider ahead of them on the road being Valverde, one minute ahead with three kilometres to go. Froome seemed to be feeling in excellent form, because he appeared to be wanting to leave Wiggins and chase down Valverde for the stage win. Whether Wiggins denied permission or Froome decided against it, the two Britons finished the stage together, just 19 seconds behind the Spaniard.
Stage 18 is a medium mountains stage, with a few Category 4 climbs breaking up the flats. This could be a stage for a breakaway (think Albasini, Scarponi and even Pinot or Rolland) or it could equally be pulled in by Lotto Belisol to allow for another Greipel-Sagan showdown.
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