Make Them Pay

Being a professional bike rider is a dangerous job, whether mountain biking, road racing or track racing. But some people just don’t seem to get this.

Every year, millions of people turn out to watch professional bike races all around the world, none more so than the Tour de France. You’d think that anyone going to watch a bike race would be smart enough to keep out of the way when the bikes go past. Apparently not.

It’s becoming more and more common that a nosy spectator puts the whole peloton at risk by standing in clearly the wrong place when the action is happening. We’ve all seen it before – the notorious ‘Yellow Woman’ who got in the way of Alexander Vinokourov during Stage 1 of the 2011 Tour de France and took out two-thirds of the peloton in the process, or the man who ran directly in front of Sebastian Langeveld during the Tour of Flanders earlier this year, causing him to crash over his handlebars and break his collarbone. There was even a well-publicised incident in the Tour de France last year, where costumed spectators ran a little too close to Alberto Contador and even tried touching the defending champion, who was forced to push them back in order to keep racing.

Though wanting a good view of the race or a chance to get up close and personal with the riders is fair enough, the middle of a race – literally – is not the right time or place to do it. While it might be cool for the fans, the riders can lose concentration or time, or they can crash and wind up with several months of painful recovery and a hold put on their career because someone didn’t have the sense to get out of the way. Nothing excuses causing that kind of carnage in the Tour de France – or any bike race, for that matter. It’s thoughtless, extremely dangerous, and the spectators involved should be made to pay for their actions.

And by pay, I mean they should be fined.

Breaching the road laws that govern the interactions of motorists and pedestrians frequently results in a hefty fine, so why not do the same for spectators who impede cyclists? The driver who critically injured New Zealand cyclist Michael Torckler in a hit-and-run late last month is facing almost 10 years in prison for a multitude of offences surrounding the incident, so fining spectators who get in the way of cyclists is far from a radical suggestion.

Rabobank’s Luis Léon Sánchez would likely welcome the idea. The Spaniard was swamped by eager fans running alongside him and touching him as he climbed the Col de Grosse Pierre on Stage 7 of this year’s Tour, the race commissaires powerless to do anything to help him. Sánchez heads a list of riders with similar experiences in this year’s Tour alone, some of the incidents more dangerous than others. The Tour de France organisers have even started appealing to the public to stay clear of the riders and respect the race. Though it’s disappointing that it’s become necessary, the message would go down a lot faster if transgressors were slapped with fines rather than just the cyclist’s free hand.

Why Cadel Needs Andy

Alberto Contador has a skill that is almost unique in road racing – he has the ability to sprint full-pelt up the highest of mountains. I say 'almost unique' because there is one other rider who also makes the Alps look like a Sunday race meet – the Luxembourg hero, Andy Schleck. Only these two can do on a mountain what Mark Cavendish does on a flat, but there are of course other excellent climbers in the peloton, some of whom can keep pace with the dynamic duo when they start playing cat-and-mouse with each other. I'm thinking specifically of Cadel Evans. While he can't leap into a massive sprint like Contador and Schleck, Evans can build up his speed to match the pair and stay with them as they race away up France's highest climbs. There are merely a handful of other riders with any hope of doing the same, explaining why Contador, Evans and Schleck have dominated the Tour de France for the past few years.

But with Contador out on a doping suspension and Schleck out with a broken sacrum, Evans is the only one of the super-speed trio left to contend this year's Tour, and this year he has a very strong, very dangerous opponent to face – Bradley Wiggins. The Brit is every bit as canny as Evans on the flats, even a little stronger than him on the time trials and has a team to make everyone green with envy, and the only real advantage over Wiggins that Evans has is in the mountains, where Evans is a slightly stronger descender and – maybe – a slightly stronger climber.

But the real question is, will Evans bring his mountain-climbing speed into play? In recent years his punchy speed has always been a defensive reaction to moves made by Contador and Schleck, done simply to keep his chief rivals in check, always knowing that he could stick it to them in a time trial, his real strength. But the strategy won't work with Wiggins, who can usually better Evans in a race against the clock, meaning Evans needs to change tactics this year and gain his lead in the mountains. But without Contador or Schleck to provoke a reaction, can Evans turn his defensive skill into an offensive attack that will leave Brad Wiggins far enough behind to give Evans the advantage? Short of a twist to make a novelist jealous, a sprint up the mountains may be the only way for the Australian to hold off a British attack on his crown.

The Contador Controversy

For some reason, it was only announced during September of 2010, during the International Cycling Union (UCI) Road World Championships, that Alberto Contador had tested positive to a small amount of clenbuterol in his bloodstream on the second rest day of the 2010 Tour de France. Clenbuterol is a bronchodilator, meaning it makes breathing easier and thus increases the amount of oxygen in the body and stimulates the central nervous system, which has earned the drug a place on the UCI's banned list. Contador’s explanation as to why he and some of his teammates tested positive was that they consumed steaks contaminated with clenbuterol that were provided by a friend.

This wouldn’t be the first time in sport that contaminated food has caused athletes to test positive for clenbuterol.  109 soccer players tested positive in the 2011 Under 17 World Cup in Mexico after eating Mexican meat, which can contain the drug.  Cyclists in the 2011 Tour of Beijing were advised by their directeurs sportifs to avoid eating beef or pork whilst in China, as clenbuterol is commonly fed to cows and pigs there.  Instead riders were advised to stick to chicken and fish, which cannot contain clenbuterol, to avoid the scenario in which Contador found himself.  It’s also worth noting that the amount of clenbuterol found in his system was 40 times less than the minimum detectable amount of the World Anti-Doping Agency labs and was only picked up when the samples were sent to a lab in Switzerland that specialises in detecting minute traces of drugs.

Considering it was the most high-profile case in cycling for its entire duration, the Contador controversy took way too long to be resolved.  Contador’s positive test occurred on July 21^st, 2010, but was only publicly announced on September 30^th, well after the Tour de France concluded.  The case was first heard in February 2011 by the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC), who accepted Contador’s explanation of contaminated meat and cleared him of doping charges.  The following month both the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced their intention to appeal the decision to CAS, which announced it would resolve the case before the 2011 Tour de France.  Needless to say, this didn’t happen, and Contador lined up for the 2011 Tour amidst a storm of conjecture.  The hearing finally took place in November, and a verdict was originally due in mid-January, until the composition of the CAS arbitration panel was called into question, delaying the verdict.  Finally on February 6^th 2012, the arbitration panel issue being resolved, the decision was finally handed down.

So why did Contador’s case take so long to be resolved?  His was not the only doping case of late, or even the only high-profile one or scandalous one.  12-time French female national champion Jeannie Longo missed the critical third random doping test in 18 months and was lucky to avoid the mandatory two-year suspension after she was acquitted on a technicality – the anti-doping authorities failed to inform Longo that she was still eligible for out-of-race testing.  Danish rider Alex Rasmussen was even luckier – the UCI failed to inform Rasmussen of his third infringement within the required 14 days, thus jeopardising their own case against him.  Each of these cases was resolved within seven months of the final infringement taking place.  Yet Contador’s case lasted from July 21^st, 2010, when he tested positive, until February 6^th this year, when the final decision was handed down – a total time of over 18 months.

Despite her husband and trainer being investigated for the procurement of a banned substance, there was no evidence in her case to suggest Longo was actually guilty of doping, nor for Rasmussen, and given the circumstances, it seems unlikely that Contador was intentionally doing so either.  Regardless, CAS handed down the standard sentence for a positive doping test – a two-year suspension from the sport, which was backdated to January 25^th, 2011.  Under this sentence, Contador will not only lose his 2010 Tour de France title, but also any other titles won between January 25^th, 2011 and February 6^th, 2012, including the 2011 Giro d’Italia and his 5^th place in the 2011 Tour de France.  The suspension won’t be lifted until January 25^th, 2013, meaning that Contador will be ineligible for not only the 2012 Tour de France but also the 2012 London Olympics – a harsh sanction overall.

It’s made even worse by the fact that Contador is now fully aware of what he is losing, given the races and jerseys he has won since the 2010 Tour.  Had the issue been dealt with directly after the Tour, in the same fashion as Longo and Rasmussen, Contador would merely have lost the chance to earn the titles, and might even have been eligible to race in time for the Olympics.  Instead Contador has to watch as 18 months of hard work and training goes down the drain, the only light at the end of the tunnel being that due to the backdating less than half his suspension remains to be served.  For the 28-year-old who just a few years ago was cycling’s golden boy, he certainly got the raw end of the deal this time.

Stage 21 - Creteil => Paris Champs-Elysees

The final day of the Tour de France.  Traditionally uncontested, the ride up the Champs-Elysees is intended as nothing more than a victory lap for the deserving winner and a final chance for the sprinters to do their thing and cement, claim or lose the green jersey.

And what a victory lap it was.  Cadel Evans was revelling in the glory of his win, making history in more than one way.  Samuel Sanchez and Pierre Rolland were also enjoying their day in the sun, both figurative and literal, as the peloton rolled along the roads from Creteil into central Paris.  With another sprint stage still to come Mark Cavendish's hold on the green jersey wasn't certain, but 62 points ahead of his nearest challenger, Movistar's JJ Rojas,  the much-coveted maillot was likely to remain his.

The day had a rather sombre start to it, with the peloton all pausing for a minute's silence to commemorate the tragic events in Norway two days earlier.  Then it was back on the bikes and pedalling again towards the end of the 98th Tour de France.  For the first half of the race no-one was taking the 'race' part very seriously, the jersey winners riding along congratulating each other, Cadel leading the peloton with his team BMC and sharing the traditional glass of champagne with his DS, John Lelangue.

All camaraderie was out the window once they hit the Champs-Elysees, though.  The pace began to pick up and there was a subtle shift in the demeanour of the riders leading the peloton down France's most famous street.  BMC disappeared back into the main peloton, protecting Cadel from any last-minute mishaps, while the other teams began trying to build a breakaway.

It wasn't until aptly-named British Sky sprinter Ben Swift decided to take his chance that anyone got away.  Followed by four others, they took advantage of the peloton's distraction at the intermediate sprint point and bolted away to a 45-second lead with 35 kilometres left to ride.  While most of the teams were uninterested in the sprint, HTC-Highroad and Movistar in particular were keen to fight it out, Cavendish and Renshaw taking 7th and 8th to push 9th-placed José Joaquin Rojas further back in the race for the green sprinter's jersey.

Despite BMC's efforts, Cadel didn't entirely manage to avoid trouble, though.  It wasn't shown on the broadcast, but he revealed later on that as he slowed down to go around a sharp corner, the motorbike in front of him wasn't quite as considered and went over.  Cadel, with the help of his teammates, managed to dodge the toppled motorbike and continued on to finish the stage without trouble.

As the peloton rounded the final corner signalling six kilometres to go the break was still 20 seconds ahead, and it fell to the teams of the sprinters not represented in the break to try and bring it back.  Swift and HTC-Highroad's Lars Bak were the last two to be reeled in at three kilometres to go, and after that the HTC-Highroad Express blazoned a path down the Champs-Elysees with the rest of the 2011 Tour de France peloton in its wake.  With the high pace being set by Tony Martin and Cav's 'pilotfish', Bernie Eisel, it's not surprising that no-one could escape the clutches of the peloton until the Manx Missile was released to take his fifth stage victory of this Tour and his 20th Tour career victory.  My cutie Boasson Hagen (Sky) and Omega Pharma-Lotto's Andre Greipel came a close third and second, followed by Garmin sprinter Tyler Farrar and a surprising fifth in Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek).

And thus ended another gripping, thrilling, heart-rending and triumphant Tour de France.  The first ever winner from both Australia and the Southern Hemisphere stands on the top step of the podium, with the first ever pair of brothers to podium standing to either side.  Cadel has finally combined two second places to make a first, while Andy stands one step down for the third year in a row.  Samuel Sanchez carried off the polka-dot jersey, Cav has finally won his green one, and Alberto Contador was nowhere to be seen, finishing 3:57 down on the overall winner.  French unknown Pierre Rolland stole away with white, Garmin-Cervelo got to stand on the podium with their World Champion as the fastest team, while FDJ's Jeremy Roy (a.k.a. 'our Jeremy') took the prize of 'Supercombativity' - the most aggressive and spirited rider overall.  And while as a devoted Leopard Trek fan girl I would love to see the sky blue and black a step higher up the podium next year, I can't help but have a patriotic feeling that my dear Andy will have a helluva time taking that yellow off Cadel next year.

Stage 19 - Mondane => Alpe d'Huez

Three days left to go in the Tour de France.  It is close, but not decided yet.  How will that change tonight?  Will we know our winner by tomorrow?  Will we know who's lost?  And who will win on Alpe d'Huez?

Today started with - guess what? - another big breakaway.  This time 14 riders jumped off 10 kilometres from the starting line at Mondane, though they weren't destined to be very long-lived on a mountain stage like d'Huez.  The surprising and yet not-surprising move of the day was from our favourite spicer-of-the-mix, Alberto Contador.  Rounding a corner on the extreme inside of the pack, he surged ahead as the gradient increased of the corner and simply didn't look back.  Andy Schleck was right behind him as always, Cadel Evans fought his way to their wheel, and Thomas Voeckler did that thing he does these days where he supercedes his actual abilities and just does what needs doing to protect the yellow jersey.  Unfortunately for Andy, brother Frank couldn't follow the move and waited behind with the rest of Leopard Trek in the peloton.

This was where things got interesting.  Five kilometres from the top of the first climb, the Col du Telegraphe, Contador went again, and while Andy followed, this time both Cadel and Voeckler floundered.  So maybe it wasn't unexpected when Cadel first stopped to check his bike and then, clearly unhappy with it, waited for the team car to change it for a new one.  This was a definite turning-point in this year's Tour.  Cadel had lost enough time on the leaders to be counting it in minutes, not seconds, and there were only three days left, two if you discount the ceremonial ride into Paris.  Could he do it?

While Voeckler sat out in no-man's land, trying to catch up to the two leaders but never quite strong enough, Cadel dropped back to the peloton, being lead by Ivan Basso's Liquigas team, for a bit of support from his own team.  Right out the front, Andy and Alberto were chugging neatly through the forlorn remnants of the breakaway that couldn't take the heat of an Alpine climb.   Only Movistar stage winner Rui da Costa and AG2R climber Christophe Riblon kept up with the big boys after they'd been caught, and the four continued up once more to the heights of the Col du Galibier.

Back at the peloton, BMC had taken over the pace-making from Liquigas, but as we've seen many times this Tour Cadel wanted to ride his own race, and that's what he did.  Sitting at the front end of the peloton, he soon rode them off his wheel and began encroaching on Voeckler, who decided to sit up and wait for the septet of Cadel, Ivan Basso, Samuel Sanchez, Frank Schleck, and three of Voeckler's own Europcar teammates.

And this is where is starts getting messy.  Sanchez jumps off the front, Europcar's Anthony Charteau and Pierre Rolland chase, Voeckler starts to tire, Charteau drops back to Voeckler, Rolland carries on.  Crossing the top of the Galibier, it's Schleck followed by his friends, then Sanchez, Cadel followed a few seconds later by his group, assorted others chasing, Voeckler with two teammates and then the peloton itself.  On the descent, Sanchez catches the leading four, Cadel's group consolidates itself and then effectively chases down the leaders, catching them and forming one big lead group with 25 kilometres to go.

White jersey hopeful Rolland went off the front first, along with Canadian Ryder Hesjedal, and the two had a 47-second gap open at the foot of the Alpe.  In the meantime, Voeckler's teammates had paced him back to the main group to try and stay competitive in the GC.  Only 15 seconds ahead of Andy Schleck, Voeckler's yellow jersey was on shaky ground.  Behind Rolland and Hesjedal, a big push from one of Leopard Trek's domestiques saw riders start tumbling off the back again, including Voeckler and the current white jersey wearer, Estonian Rein Taaramae.  Then Contador attacked at 12.5 kilometres out, catching up to Rolland and Hesjedal before Andy and Cadel could catch him.  Soon after catching the pair, Contador went on ahead, with Rolland chasing his wheel.

At the 10.5-kilometre mark, a group containing Sammy Sanchez and Frank Schleck made it up to Cadel and Andy's group - yes, they're all over the mountain again.  The Schlecks tried to make Cadel's life difficult, but he took everything they threw at him easily.  When Peter Velits (HTC-Highroad) went off the front, Sanchez chased him, passed him and caught up to Rolland, who, despite the Spaniard's urgings, refused to do any leading.  Rolland sat comfortably on the back of Sanchez's wheel until they caught Alberto, and then promptly took off, leaving the two exhausted Spaniards in the dust to come in second and third, while the young French took his first TdF stage win and the white jersey.

So after all that kerfuffle, the changing hands of the white jersey and the unexpected stage winner who wears it, Cadel is now only 57 seconds down on new race leader Andy Schleck going into tomorrow's time trial, and a laughable four seconds down on second-placed Frank.  While Andy will savour his yellow over the next 24 hours, the question remains as to whether Andy can do a brilliant time trial to save that yellow jersey, or whether in 24 hours, that yellow will be Cadel's.

Stage 18 - Pinerolo => Galibier Serre-Chevalier

Oh.  My gosh.  The Col du Galibier.  FINALLY.  Mountains high enough to get some excitement going.  I will confess, though, that one thing does annoy me about the mountain stages - either you have a breakaway that breaks up and leaves scattered riders all over the course until you have no idea who is where anymore, or else everyone goes quietly off the back of the peloton, never to be seen or heard from again.

But moping aside, mountains!  There was, of course, the usual intermediate sprint with all the associated green jersey action, but all the work of HTC-Highroad to get Mark Cavendish up there in front of JJ Rojas was somewhat wasted, given the breakaway made their break only one kilometre from the sprint point, sweeping through with the top 13 places.  Such big names as AG2R-La Mondiale's Nicolas Roche and everyone's favourite battler, Johnny Hoogerland of Vacansoleil.

But what baffled everyone was the inclusion of Leopard Trek riders Joost Posthuma and Maxime Monfort and BMC's Brent Bookwalter in the breakaway.  As the two teams with GC riders most likely to win the Tour, road race tactics dictate they avoid joining breakaways and try to reel in any that do form.  As we were to discover, Leopard Trek was simply enacting their grand plan.  Maybe BMC had conceived the same plan and missed their opportunity too enact it, or maybe they were simply marking Leopard's move.  It's hard to say.

The number of riders in the breakaway went out to 15 just before the Col Agnel, when Marcus Burghardt (BMC), Mickael Delage (FDJ) and Egor Silin (Katusha) caught up to them.  At the beginning of the first hors-categorie climb the now-16 strong breakaway had almost a nine-minute lead over the main peloton.

And then began the fun of the mountain stages.  As the hills kick in, the climbers check in and the not-so-climbers check out, which left the lead group at 11.  Katusha's Maxim Iglinsky was taking the lead, cresting the Col Agnel first with Johnny Hoogerland right behind.  The group moved straight onto the Col d'Izoard, only six making it to the top in the lead, Leopard Trek's pace-making making it difficult to keep away.

The reason soon became apparent, in one of the most gutsy and unorthodox moves in modern cycling.  60 kilometres from the finish of a mountain stage, Andy Schleck went off the front off the group of favourite riders and began to make his way up the Col d'Izoard alone.  No one was sure what the hell he was doing.  No one was sure he could actually do whatever he was doing.  But he is Andy Schleck, one of the most capable riders in the peloton.  He blazed right past the remnants of the breakaway group as he blazoned on up the Col.

And this was where Leopard Trek's unusual tactics began to show.  As the group of the top contenders behind him finally began to up the ante, maybe not believing he could really stay off the front until the end, the two Leopard riders up from front, Joost and Maxime, waited for Andy to catch up with each of them in turn, and then paced him as far as they could go.  But there was still Iglinsky way out in front.

With the help of teammate Maxime and the three other riders around them, Andy caught Iglinsky with 30 kilomeres left to go, by which point he was far enough ahead of Thomas Voeckler to be wearing the 'virtual' yellow jersey.  With 15 kilometres to go, Max Monfort had finally run out of steam and left Andy to go it almost alone, keeping Iglinsky and Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale) for company.

Meanwhile, Contador had decided that enough was enough and started chasing down Andy Schleck.  The three-time Tour de France champion clearly felt he had already lost too much time on his two-time runner-up and was doing something about it, but pretty soon the pace-making all fell to Cadel Evans.  After a couple of abortive breakaway attempts, the also-two-time runner-up clearly decided to ride his own race and simply paced himself up the hill, coincidentally with the yellow jersey group in tow.  As they hauled themselves up the final climb of the Col du Galibier, almost four minutes separated Andy from the groupe maillot jaune.

Finally within the 10-kilometre mark, Andy clearly saw fit to shed his baggage and raced away up the mountain.  Behind him the gap was slowly closing, as Cadel literally dragged the world's top riders up the world's most famous biking mountain.  Though clearly not finding it easy, Andy stuck to his guns long enough to get them over the finishing line in first place, while Contador couldn't stick to his further downhill and fell off the back of Cadel's group, kissing another yellow goodbye.  Andy's brother Frank found his legs and was able to sprint off the front of Cadel's group in the last few kilometres to take second behind his younger sibling.

In a miraculous twist, Voeckler was able to stick to Cadel's wheel, who brought him in 15 seconds ahead of Andy and thus kept his yellow jersey for yet another astonishing day.  So with Contador is clearly out of the question, the question itself reads thus: Andy or Cadel?  Cadel, or Andy?  And here at Maillot Jaune, I've already picked my side.  It's Cadel, all the way.

Stage 16 - Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux => Gap

So I guess medium mountain stages are better than flat stages, but they're still not nearly as fun or exciting as the high mountains.  Well, not unless top-level-mountain-climbing-GC-contenders like Alberto Contador decide that an otherwise unremarkable stage is the perfect time to attack and try and gain time on the other GC contenders - and decide the outcome of the Tour de France in the process.  Yes, as of today I'm staking my reputation, such as it is, and calling it.  But I won't spoil the surprise yet.

Today's breakaway took quite a while to form, but the composition will surprise few.  Several are familiar names from other breakaways: Thor Hushovd, of Garmin-Cervelo; Jeremy Roy, FDJ; Marco Marcato, from Vacansoleil; and other familiar names include Norwegian sprinter Eddie Boasson Hagen; and strong GC rider Tony Martin, of HTC-Highroad.  Once released the riders flew ahead and gained huge amounts of time on the peloton, until they'd built up a lead of six minutes with 45 kilometres to go and the peloton stopped chasing after it realised they wouldn't be caught before the intermediate sprint point.  First Katusha's Mikhail Ignatyev, followed by Quickstep's Dries Devenyns, tried to break from the group, but the breakaway soon caught their wheel and forced the 10 to stick together.

Canada's Ryder Hesjedal then took up the breakaway's pace-making, and finding the others unable to keep up, took off on his own.  Sky's young sprinter Edvald Boasson Hagen, who is showing himself to be reasonably adept at scaling mountains as well, soon decided to take up the chase, and was followed by Hesjedal's teammate, world champion Thor Hushovd, who marked Boasson Hagen's every move but refused to help in the chase of his co-equipier.  Behind them the breakaway splintered, the remaining riders destined to drift across the finish line over a period of a few minutes.

With all eyes on the breakaway and the fierce competition between Hesjedal, Boasson Hagen and Hushovd for stage supremacy, of course it was in the peloton where the action was taking place.  Feeling the gradient suddenly kick up on the bottom of the Col de Manse as the peloton rounded a bend, Alberto Contador suddenly jumped to the front of the peloton and attacked, and all of a sudden the race was on.  The Schleck brothers of Team Leopard Trek, Cadel Evans (BMC) and yellow jersey of Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) all followed, trailed by Olympic champion, Euskaltel-Euskadi's Sammy Sanchez.  Contador went again, and this time Andy Schleck struggled to keep up, not faring so well on the medium slope.  Contador attacked a third time, and this time he was gone, and only after a few seconds could Cadel and Samuel Sanchez catch up, the Schlecks and Voeckler left behind.  Sanchez quickly assumed the lead from Contador to try and put some distance between the three and their chasers, who were separated from the main peloton.

As the trio raced uphill, another trio was racing down.  Nine kilometres from the end Boasson Hagen, usually described as a "sprinter", had caught sole Canadian pro-cyclist Hesjedal, Hushovd still sitting comfortably in his younger countryman's wake.  Now both Garmin riders sat back, letting Boasson Hagen do the pace-making, the black-clad rider knowing all the time that the teammates on his back wheel were co-ordinating their attack against him.  In truth it was very simple and not at all unexpected.  With a couple of kilometres to go Hesjedal took up the pace-making again, Hushovd at the back, Boasson Hagen sitting in between checking constantly on the bigger sprinter behind to see when he would make his move.  The three moved warily down to the flamme rouge of one kilometre to go, and then they went.  Hesjedal increased the tempo to open up the sprint, and when Boasson Hagen wasn't expecting it Hushovd simply jumped out from behind and went ahead.  The younger Norwegian sprinter was no match for the older Norwegian sprinter, and Hushovd took a second stage victory from his compatriot.

Meanwhile the fight was still very much alive behind them, and as Contador, Evans and Sanchez crested the climb they had around a minute over the other GC riders pursuing them.  But the gap increased on the descent, for Cadel Evans, clearly a better descender than either of the Spaniards, rode downhill at his own pace, and at one point had nearly 30 seconds over his two followers.  The pair managed to bring this down once they reached the flat section leading to the finish at Gap, finishing three seconds behind Evans and around 20 seconds ahead of the pursuers behind, who included Thomas Voeckler and Frank Schleck but not his brother, Andy.

So to finish my earlier comments, I'm now calling the yellow jersey of the 2011 Tour de France for Cadel Evans.  Of the serious contenders for the maillot jaune who are left in the race, Cadel is the best time-trialler and will finish with at least 30 seconds over the nearest of them.  He can keep pace with Andy and Alberto in the high mountains, those being the two known for their quick accelerations on steep ascents, and is quite comfortable in medium mountains, something which Andy Schleck (and possibly Frank) is definitely not.  He is in brilliant form this year, looking much better than any of the other riders, and  lastly his team this year is excellent. BMC's Tour de France team was chosen with direct input from Cadel Evans and with supporting Cadel to yellow in mind, and all of the team members have been visible doing exactly that, while Contador's Saxobank-Sungard side made mistakes from the word 'go' (beginning with the crash in the first stage where the team should have moved Contador up the front out of trouble like the other teams had done).  Andy and Frank's team of Leopard Trek are all brilliant, but maybe their issue lies therein.  Leopard truly is a 'team of champions', each one renowned and celebrated with several victories to their name, whereas by contrast BMC appears to be the proverbial 'champion team' - eight good, solid, unremarkable riders all focussed on the single goal of helping Cadel Evans win the Tour.  With all this in his favour, I fail to see now how he can lose.

Stage 14 - Saint-Gaudens => Plateau de Beille

In every Tour de France which has had a stage finish on the Plateau de Beille, the winner of the stage has gone on to win the Tour.  I highly doubt that this will ring true this year - the stage winner is not a big name; in fact, this is their first win in their entire professional career of seven years.  But like all sport cycling is constantly improving, and I suspect that not only is the quality of riders by this 2011 Tour higher than the last time the Tour rode to Plateau de Beille, but that the high-quality riders are closer together in ability than they have been previously.  In short, there are more equally-brilliant riders than every other time the winner of Plateau de Beille has won the Tour de France.

Today's breakaway was a surprising one - 24 riders, including three from the GC teams of yellow jersey hopefuls Cadel Evans (BMC) and Frank and Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek).  A breakaway of this size was never going to succeed, so some of the riders decided to go it alone.  Julien El Fares of Cofidis and the team leader of FDJ, Sandy Casar, leapt ahead of the pack and were soon joined by Garmin-Cervelo's David Millar.  As the reached the first of the climbs Millar was unable to keep up, but several others from the original breakaway of 24 came forward to join Casar and El Fares to make a total of 11 riders, including Jens Voigt and Linus Gerdemann, the teammates of the Schleck brothers.

Europcar, protecting the yellow jersey of Thomas Voeckler, began setting the pace, before Leopard Trek took over and began upping the ante, putting the pressure on the peloton as they began traversing the second and first category climbs mi-parcours.  Unfortunately Stuey O'Grady may have been warning the riders behind him of the upcoming bends of the descents, but clearly not all got the message, as Rabobank's Laurens Ten Dam went off the bitumen and performed what can only be described as a faceplant over the handlebars into a ditch.  Patched up, he continued chasing, but up in the breakaway Jens Voigt wasn't having any more luck.  Having chosen a nice place to crash, he promptly went off the road into a large pile of soft ferns, and quickly re-emerged, bike held over his head.  The new bike did him no good either, for his wheel slipped on the sun-warmed tar of the road and he hit the deck again.  The peloton soon reeled him in and he joined the "Leopard Trek Express", chuffing Andy and Frank right on up the climbs - the rest of the peloton were participation optional!

Once they hit the final climb, the hors-categorie montee up to the Plateau de Beille, the result was inevitable.  Leopard Trek kept going as long as they had breath and rider, stamping out a pace designed to shred the peloton to pieces.  As usual they did a good job, only a few riders still able to follow the leaders by the time the Leopard domestiques could do no more.  The leaders themselves did the rest of the work, setting a pace only they could handle as they swept past broken remnants of breakaway and attacks long forgotten and now futile.

Though many were saying it was Frank who looked strongest on the climb up to Luz-Ardiden two days ago, today it was Andy Schleck who parried and feinted like a master swordsman, attacking several times on the way up the plateau.  By now the group only held 10 - Andy and his brother; Cadel Evans; Alberto Contador, Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale); Jelle Vanendert (Omega Pharma-Lotto); Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi); Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R La Mondiale); and yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler and teammate Pierre Rolland.  Lampre's Damiano Cunego clung to the back for a while, but as the group reached the higher climes Cunego had long since disappeared.  Despite Andy's attacks, he achieved no time advantage, for there was always someone waiting to jump on his back wheel, and the rest of the group followed suit.  Though he never actively chased as did Voeckler or Evans, Contador remained in the group, following every attack as closely as all the rest.  Basso seemed to be riding at his own tempo, sometimes falling off the back of the group and at other times leaping to the front to lead it, unable to keep up with the accelerations and decelerations of the others.

The four main rivals were so busy concentrating on each other they didn't notice at first when Jelle Vanendert made his move and got clear, and little did they care, either.  Not high enough on the GC table to be a threat, Evans, Contador and the Schlecks were conserving their energy to battle each either, so neither did the follow when Sammy Sanchez decided now was his time.  Unable to catch the Belgian, the stage played out as a mirror image of Luz-Ardiden, when Sanchez won, Vanendert took second and the main riders shadowed each other to the finish.  This time, however, the Belgian unknown was riding to his first ever victory on the pro circuit, shadowed by the world champion.  As the "peloton" of the top GC riders came in, Andy clearly felt a bit antsy and sprinted for the finish, leaving the others to come in a few seconds behind, not enough to change the overall standings.

The remarkable rider of the day had to go to Thomas Voeckler, who, even though he eventually lost teammate Pierre Rolland who had paced him up Luz-Ardiden and is likely a better climber, still managed to chase the big names up to the top and challenge them for the lead.  If Andy, Cadel & Friends don't manage to dislodge him when they reach the Alps, Tommy Voeckler could suddenly be dangerously close to winning the French a Tour de France.

Stage 12 - Cugnaux => Luz-Ardiden

There is a saying amongst the riders when they reach the Pyrenees - "Le Tour commence aujourd'hui" ("The Tour starts today"), and they would be right.  This is the reason I have been waiting so eagerly for the mountains in the Tour de France - it's where you get to separate the boys from the men, find out who is in good form and who's not, and you can finally tell who's serious about winning the Tour de France.

As expected on such as auspicious day there was a certain amount of chaos from people attacking, falling back, being caught and dropping off, but being the mountains there are only so many riders who can truly handle them, and it wasn't as hard as it sometimes is to keep track of who was where.  The drama (and the television coverage!) started at 80 kilometres from the finish.  As usual there was a breakaway out the front - this time it was Geraint Thomas from Team Sky leading it, Laurent Mangel from Saur-Sojasun, Blel Kadri of AG2R and Ruben Perez of Euskaltel-Euskadi, as well as Jose Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar) and Jeremy Roy (FDJ) for the umpteenth time, all seven or eight minutes ahead of the peloton.

Meanwhile the sprinters were gathering themselves up for the last goodbye - the final green jersey points before the mountains where they would be relegated to the autobus, the group of non-mountain-loving sprinters just trying to get over the finish before the elimination time.  Though the highest points had already been taken the breakaway, the sprinters still took their chances, and it was really no surprise to anyone that it was Mark Cavendish who took the maximum remaining points, followed by teammates Gossie and Renshaw.  The two picked up more points to increase the gap between Cav and his nearest rivals for the green jersey, Philippe Gilbert and Jose Joaquin Rojas, who followed the HTC boys across the line.  After that it was the back of the pack and the autobus for these guys.

It was on the first climb of the day, the Category 1 Hourquette d'Ancizan, that the first move came.  King of the Mountains Johnny Hoogerland, soon followed by first Sylvain Chavanel and then Roman Kreuziger, raced on ahead in the hopes of winning enough extra polka-dot jersey points to keep his hold on the KOM jersey.  While Hoogerland soon reappeared in the peloton's radar, and even Chavanel eventually came home thanks to the relentless riding of the main bunch, Kreuziger went right off and was at one point within 30 seconds of the leading riders, though he never bridged the gap and fell off the back like all the rest as the climbs reached their steepest.

Out the front the lead group was collasping, as Geraint Thomas decided he was better off alone and made it happen.  Thomas had been wearing the white jersey of the best young rider until the crash of team leader Brad Wiggins, where the team stopped to see if the injured Brit could continue and Thomas lost several minutes on his rivals.  Jeremy Roy soon decided that he didn't like left behind and dragged himself up to form the leading pair, leading the race until part-way up Luz-Ardiden, the final hors-categorie (outside classification) climb of the day.

The peloton were having fun too.  Geraint Thomas had earlier had problems on one of the corners - he braked, caused his back wheel to lock and went skidding off the side of the road on a downhill.  Thankfully dodging between the parked cars and falling off his bike before the pair took the short cut down the mountain, he remounted and continued the descent, only to go skidding off the road again at the next corner!  Swapping bikes (there was mud on his wheels from the first incident that caused the second one), Thomas continued the cautious descent, while team staff advised their riders to beware Thomas' issues.  But at that self-same corner Thomas Voeckler also locked his back wheel and crashed gently into one of the parked cars, before turning his bike and heading downhill again.  Other riders weren't so lucky, hitting the deck in the middle of the corner and forcing the peloton around them. No injuries more serious than scrapes and bruises, though.

The peloton continued up the first hors-categorie climb of the Col de Tourmalet, Leopard Trek setting a grueling pace, while two or three different breakaway groups formed and faded away, the only one that never came back being that of Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Omega Pharma-Lotto unknown Jelle Vanendert.  The peloton slowly grew smaller up the climb, riders like Jens Voigt and Stuey O'Grady sacrificing themselves completely under orders from the Schleck brothers.  By the time they were one-third of the way up Luz-Ardiden it had paid off.  While Sanchez and Vanendert were still a minute or so ahead, the only other riders left were the Schlecks, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, Damiano Cunego, leader of Team Lampre, Ivan Basso and teammate Sylvester Smyzd, who was likewise ordered to pick up the pace, and yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler and teammate Pierre Rolland (Europcar).  The octet paced each other up, watching for the moves, until Andy and Frank pulled the old one-two on the rest, Andy feinting before Frank pulled away and made a move.  The second time Frank went none followed, so the Luxembourg national champion chased down the two leaders and finished just behind Jelle Vanendert, who didn't have the legs to beat Sanchez to the stage win.  Meanwhile the other six, Sylvester Smyzd now having been dropped, continued on up to the high finish, and everyone was surprised to see Andy, Cadel and Basso round the corner without Contador, who eventually finish eight seconds behind.

The general classification is now in disarray, Thomas Voeckler with less of a gap after finishing 30 seconds behind Frank Schleck, who has now leapfrogged Cadel into second place thanks to his breakaway attempt.  Contador, while now ahead of almost everyone else in the GC, is even further behind the riders who really matter - Frank, Andy, Cadel, and even Ivan and Damiano.  Cavendish retains the green jersey, as does Voeckler his yellow, while Sanchez stole the King of the Mountains jersey at the top of Luz-Ardiden, and the white jersey is now being sported by young FDJ rider Arnold Jeannesson, who managed to follow the big names right up the mountain to finish in 13th place.  Oddly enough, Jeannesson was only trying to improve himself in the general classification, and regarded the maillot blanc as a sort of extra benefit on the side!

Stage 9 - Issoire => Saint-Flour

I wrote on Facebook a few days ago that we'd probably have the final standings of the Tour by day 10, and that the winner this year would be the one guy still on his bike by the time we reached Paris. It's beginning to look scarily like it's coming true, and for the most horrible of reasons.

It seems all I write about these days is crashes in the Tour de France, but this year's race has really and truly been defined by these incidents. While crashes are normal - indeed, expected - in any bike race, this year seems to have been particularly bad. With the death of Wouter Weylandt in the Giro and Team Movistar rider Juan Mauricio Soler left in a coma after a crash in the Tour de Suisse, the horrific accidents at the Tour are made all the more scary. Three teams (Sky, Astana and Omega-Pharma Lotto) are now left without their main GC contendors, two other teams (Quickstep and Radioshack) look set to go the same way, and the only team that seems to have been no riders who've hit the asphalt is Team Leopard Trek, of the Schleck brothers.

So today was no different - after the peloton crossed the first of the 7 climbs of the stage, the Category 3 Cote de Massiac, a breakaway finally managed to form, sprinting off the front to build up a lead of around about five minutes. It was almost surprising that the peloton let this six-man breakaway escape, given the strength of the riders in it - Spanish time-trial champion Luis Leon Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), former yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), former polka dot-jersey wearer Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil), as well as Niki Terpstra (Quickstep), Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky) and Sandy Casar (FDJ).

The six men raced away and began to climb mountains, Voeckler and Hoogerland originally fighting it out for King of the Mountains points as they crossed each climb, until the pair made a controversial and technically illegal agreement that Voeckler would let Hoogerland take maximum KOM points if Hoogerland would help Voeckler towards the yellow jersey and the stage win. The breakaway were so pre-occupied with trying to stay ahead of the peloton that they heard nothing of the destruction behind them.

Coming down the Col du Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary on the south side), Team Astana were descending fast on the outside, so fast that when they hit the corner a rider ahead of them went down and Team Astana were forced off the road into a deep ditch. Teammates soon carried Alexandre Vinokourov out of the ditch and straight into the back of a waiting Tour ambulance, which took him to hospital to be treated for his fractured femur head. Meanwhile, Omega Pharma-Lotto's leader Jurgen van den Broeck was lying on the road looking sorry for himself, and when placed back on his bicycle by team staff, van den Broeck kicked his leg back over the bike and collapsed onto the ground again, in a clear gesture of 'I'm not doing it, guys. Just get me out of here.' It was a good call by van den Broeck, who will spend several days in the Intensive Care Unit with a collapsed lung, three broken ribs and a broken shoulderblade. Teammate Frederik Willems also pulled out with a broken collarbone, as did Garmin-Cervelo's Dave Zabriskie with a broken wrist.

By agreement at the front of the peloton, a truce was called to allow those affected by the crash who could still ride to catch up to the main peloton. 20 kilometres or so later it was back to work as the peloton now had to try and reel in the breakaway, whose lead had ballooned out to five minutes again when the peloton crashed.

But the breakaway was having trouble of its own. A French TV car, swerving into the road to dodge a tree on the shoulder, drove straight into the breakaway and cleaned up two of the riders, causing Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha to kiss the asphalt and sending Vacansoleil's Johnny Hoogerland flying into a barbed wire fence. The remaining three riders in the breakaway, Niki Terpstra long having been dropped, continued riding, now with diminshed capacity to stay off the front. Flecha was soon back on the bike and being bandaged up by the medics as he tried to return to the breakaway, but his injuries won over and he was soon caught by the peloton.

It took a lot longer before anyone could get eyes on Hoogerland, but a sorrier sight never was seen at the Tour de France. Rips, tears, gashes and gouges all over him, blood flowing from inumerable cracks in the hide and with token white bandages all over, Hoogerland was more than happy to take it easy, falling off the back of the peloton but still managing to finish the stage so as to validate his King of the Mountain points and claim his hard-won jersey. Then it was off to hospital for 33 stitches, even as Flecha was taken in for an X-ray, just to be on the safe side - presuming such a thing really exists in this Tour.

While Flecha and Hoogerland tried to be bigger than their injuries, the breakaway was still flying along and managing to keep a solid five minutes clear of the peloton, a gap which was greater than that separating breakaway leader Voeckler from the yellow jersey-wearer Hushovd, making Voeckler the virtual wearer of the sunny garment. Inspired by this idea, Voeckler pushed on, receiving no help from Casar, struggling to keep up, or even Sanchez, who was conserving energy for his own move.

That move came within 500 metres of the finish, after Voeckler, who had hauled the trio up the final climb unassisted, ducked behind his two companions before darting around to try and win the stage. Sanchez saw him coming and went, and, having more in his legs than the man who had done all the day's pace-making, raced on to win three seconds ahead of the exhausted Voeckler, Casar dragging himself across the line three seconds after.

Garmin-Cervelo soon resigned themselves to the fact that Thor had lost the jersey to Thomas Voeckler and surrendered the pace-making, instead taking it easy and conserving energy for later on. But despite the best efforts of BMC and Leopard Trek, trying to keep their GC riders within a good time gap, they couldn't bridge the gap to the breakaway and instead the front section of the peloton finished almost four minutes behind, leaving Cadel Evans 2:26 down on yellow and Frank and Andy Schleck 2:29 and 2:37 down, respectively. Alberto Contador is now 16th in the general classification, 4:07 from donning the maillot jaune, and with injuries to boot. Contador has a lot of work to do if he wants glory again this year.

Stage 8 - Aigurande => Super-Besse Sancy

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...

Stage 7 - Le Mans => Chateauroux

What was meant to be another normal, easy day in the Tour has once again turned into tragedy as only the Tour can.  It's beginning to prove as it does every year that a normal day in the Tour de France is actually the most abnormal thing that can occur.

It did start off normal, at least - the customary breakaway with the peloton in no hurry to catch up.  But 90 kilometres in, after comments to his DS from other riders, numerous trips to the team car, painkillers and struggling the whole way, Tom Boonen (Quickstep) hung up the dossard (race number) for this year's Tour.  Suffering a concussion and a lot of grazes and bruises from the stage in coastal Brittany that took down numerous good riders, Boonen felt that he couldn't finish the day's stage.  "I was wondering, 'who am I pleasing by continuing?'" Boonen is quoted as saying by Cyclingnews.com.  "Not myself, that's for sure."

A few people were surprised when Jeremy Roy from FDJ launched himself off the front of the peloton, thinking that he surely couldn't be trying to bridge the seven-minute gap to the breakaway in front.  But the cognoscenti knew that the day's stage would pass by Roy's house, as he'd written in his blog the night before, and as the cameras followed him Roy stopped outside a house on the very outskirts of Saint-Armand-Longpre to hug friends and family.

The feared winds began hitting the peloton soon, and the effect was clear.  I guess it was too much to hope that a single stage of the Tour could go without a crash, especially in the first week, and the first one came at 48 kilometres to go.  No one was seriously hurt, though several strong riders including Roman Kreuziger from Astana had some hard riding to catch up.

But the worst was yet to come.  In another of the gruesome crashes like the one that took out Radioshack's Janez Brajkovic two days ago, a huge fall in the middle of the slow-moving peloton took out a number of well-known riders including Chris Horner and Levi Leipheimer from Radioshack, Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Tyler Farrar, the sprinter from Garmin-Cervelo.  But the biggest loss of the day was Sky team leader Bradley Wiggins, who also came down in the fall.  Wiggins was holding his left arm tenderly and wincing as the team doctor examined him, and it was later confirmed that Wiggins had broken his left collarbone.  He was immediately withdrawn from the race and put into a race ambulance, leaving the six-odd Sky riders waiting to pace Wiggins back into the main peloton to try and bridge the almost four-minute gap as they dealt with the huge blow to their team.  FDJ rider Remi Pauriol also broke his collarbone and did not finish the stage.  Pauriol brings the list of riders no longer competing to eight overall.

That was not the end of matters.  The massive crash in the middle of the peloton split it right down the middle.  What looked to be only 60 riders made it to the front peloton, while another 80 who had crashed or been blocked by the crash chased them three minutes behind, with many other riders individually or in small groups trying to make it back to one of the pelotons.

And after all that drama the stage had yet to be decided!  By this point, however, it was down to what front-pacing team HTC Highroad know best - a straight-out sprint.  And after a dubious first few stages the American team had their famous lead-out train in perfect working order.  All nine riders, unaffected by the crash, made a perfectly straight, even line at the front of the main peloton, with Mark Cavendish sitting in ninth place and every other sprinter in the world trying to get on his back wheel.  But there is never any point trying to compete with the entire HTC lead-out train, and Mark Renshaw and compatriots made it easy for Mark Cavendish to take his 17th Tour de France stage victory, on the same finish line where he took his first victory in 2008.  Needless to say, Cav was ecstatic, but "gutted" to hear about fellow Brit Brad Wiggins' withdrawal from the race.

Nothing to report on the top three GC contenders, but as the saying goes, at this point no news is good news. Knowing what separates GC riders from the rest is their climbing ability, it's likely Cadel Evans (BMC), Alberto Contador (Saxobank-Sungard) and Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek) will sit tight until the Pyrenees, where no one can ride quite as fast as they can up the mountains.  Right now their main job is to stay at the front of the peloton and keep safe, though Cadel Evans is clearly feeling in brilliant form at the moment and may not have ruled out the possibility of another stage win, especially with Contador still giving fans no reason to believe that he is entirely the man who has won this race three times before.  Is he still that man, or has Contador peaked already?

Stage 5 - Carhaix => Cap Frehel

It was a day of misery on the roads of coastal Brittany. What should have been nothing more than a stage in which to be careful turned into utter carnage among the peloton and the riders. Everything from clipped wheels to motorbikes and cars caused cyclists to go flying every which way and in one case, to the hospital.

It started off like every TdF stage - a breakaway, the peloton sitting back, planning to reel them in the appropriate time. There was a familiar name in the breakaway - Jose Ivan Gutierrez from Movistar was up the front again, getting some more prime time for his team's sponsor, along with three other riders.

And that was when the chaos began at the back of the peloton in the first crash of the day. A comparatively minor altercation, Quickstep's Sylvain Chavanel went down, along with Sky team leader Bradley Wiggins and his domestique Christian Knees. The only injury being pride, with 104 kilometres to go the unconcerned riders fixed their bikes and rode on to rejoin the peloton.

The chutes didn't stop there. The next crash was perhaps the most dramatic of the day - Janez Brajkovic (Radioshack) crashed on the side of the road, along with Rabobank's Robert Gesink, both of whom wear number one for their team. On the other side of the road Alberto Contador had also gone down. While Contador simply traded his bike for a new one and kept going with a couple of scrapes and bruises, Robert Gesink was bleeding from knees and elbows, and as soon as he'd caught up to the peloton he went to the white medical car to get patched up a bit and something to keep the pain at bay until he reached the finish. Brajkovic was in much worse shape. Unconscious on the road when the team doctor reached him, he was able to stand after a few minutes but was soon withdrawn from the Tour and loaded into an ambulance bound for hospital. He was later found to have a broken left collarbone as well as a nasty concussion.

The next in the long list of casualties was Tom Boonen (Quickstep), who went down in the back of the peloton with teammate Gert Steegmans. While Steegmans was back in his bike and off in seconds, Boonen was lying in the road for a while with doctors fussing over him. After five minutes of dizziness, Boonen was able to get back on his bike and back in the race, but having lost six minutes after his crash, the challenge was now to finish within the elimination time of 18 minutes. Coming in 13 minutes after the stage finish, Boonen was safe and straight off to hospital for a full damage report.

That wasn't even the last of the crashes. Danish champion from Team Saxobank-Sungard, Nicki Sorenson, was taken out by a press motorbike, which saw him thrown clear of the peloton into a group of suprised spectators, while his bike was dragged under the motorbike for another 400 metres. Thankfully unharmed from a soft landing, Sorenson was handed another bike and kept going.

The breakaway was caught at around 70 kilometres to go, a dangerous distance because of the likelihood of new breakaways. Statistics didn't diappoint, with frequent breakaway rider Jeremy Roy and former French national champion Thomas Voeckler jumping off the front at the 30-kilometre mark. But riders still weren't safe, with Euskaltel-Euskadi's Ivan Velasco crashing into a barrier and ending up in the gutter in the final 50 kilometres. Velasco is likely to withdraw from the Tour, having broken his right collarbone in the fall.

Voeckler and Roy's gutsy breakaway effort almost paid off, with an exhausted Roy pulled in a few kilometres from the finish. Voeckler played hard to get, and was only caught by the peloton with two kilometres to go. After that it was a finish for the sprinters, names like Thor Hushovd and J.J. Rojas present at the front with Mark Cavendish, who showed his trademark super-acceleration to win the stage. For such an unremarkable stage it certainly proved to be rather remarkable.

Stage 4 - Lorient => Mur-de-Bretagne

We've certainly hit the rhythm of the Tour de France now, but no stage on the Tour is ever boring.  Certainly not today, and we're beginning to see the form of some of the riders and guess who among them is likely to be on the podium in Paris.

Another breakaway today, this time leaping off the front 9 kilometres into the race.  Jeremy Roy from FDJ was in it again today, along with four other riders from teams without strong GC contenders.  BMC clearly favoured this stage for Cadel Evans, so they took on over 50% of the pace-making, with Omega Pharma-Lotto picking up the slack to pave the way for Phillipe Gilbert to take another stage victory.

As they reached the intermediate sprint, Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) began to pedal and pulled away from the other four, who were obviously uninterested in sprint points.  Hoogerland took the first 20 points uncontested, the next four sets of points going to the other members of the breakaway.  When the peloton arrived, Movistar and Garmin began setting up their trains, but it was Tyler Farrar, who won yesterday's stage in memory of late friend Wouter Weylandt, who nipped ahead to pick up the next allotment of 10 points on offer.  Green jersey wearer J.J. Rojas (Movistar) came in behind him and picked up enough points to keep his green jersey.

Omega Pharma-Lotto kept the pace up, dangling the breakaway at only two or three minutes for the next few hours, ready to reel them in for Gilbert to take the stage.  Then the peloton split unexpectedly, leaving Liquigas's Ivan Basso as well as BMC's Cadel Evans trapped at the back of the rear peloton.  The two halves of the peloton quickly joined, but Cadel's day didn't improve quite as fast.  After the 'natural break' that left him behind, he had not one but two mechanical problems - first a puncture, then an issue with the new bike after the puncture - that kept taking him to the team car at the back of the peloton.  But even then Madame Misfortune still plagued him.  As he tried to rejoin the peloton after having his bike checked, a photographer fell off the motorbike right in front of him.  A team assistant raced up to guide Cadel around and give him a push, while teammates Amael Moinard and Michael Schar waited to take him back to the front of the peloton.  They did their jobs admirably in the final 20 kilometres, and Cadel soon found himself in the front 30 riders with teammate George Hincapie, as well as the Team Leopard Trek riders surrounding Frank and Andy Schleck and the Omega Pharma-Lotto team still leading for Phillipe Gilbert.

The breakaway riders tried valiantly to hang on until the very end, and did themselves proud, finally allowing themselves to be caught at the four kilometre-mark, much later than anyone predicted.  This meant that there was minimal time for the usual posturing and positioning that happens at the end of the stage.  Of course, that's not to say there wasn't still posturing.  By the time the breakaway was caught, George Hincapie was already at the front of the peloton pedalling for all he was worth, setting the pace high to make it hard for the riders, giving Cadel the best chance of staying at the front and avoiding trouble.

At around 1.5 kilometres to go, Contador attacked and led a small group of 10 riders off the front of the main peloton.  He fought his way up the climb, leading the likes of Evans, Frank Schleck, Rigoberto Uran Uran (Team Sky) and even yellow jersey-wearer Thor Hushovd up the Mur-de-Bretagne, the Wall of Brittany.  Others including Omega Pharma-Lotto's GC rider Jurgen van den Broeck took turns pace-making, while speculation began to fly regarding Contador's racing form, suggesting that he isn't at his peak like last year and that Contador is a bit off-colour in this Tour.

Nearly 10 seconds ahead of the peloton, Contador attacked again at 500 metres to go, and Cadel followed, passing him on the final flat as he sprinted for the finish.  Contador, resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to make up any time on his rivals with his attack, rallied himself and chased after Cadel, passing him on the line and creating confusion as to who had actually won the stage.  A photo finish quickly showed that Cadel had won by a quarter of a wheel, giving BMC's GC rider a well-deserved stage victory and also the polka-dot jersey, having won the two King of the Mountain points on offer at the end of the stage.  He narrowly avoided taking the yellow jersey from Thor Hushovd, who finished in the sprint group just behind Cadel and Contador, thus maintaining his one-second lead over the Aussie.  In all likelihood Hushovd will keep the maillot jaune until Saturday, when the Tour heads into the mountains.  Cadel simply has to stay out of trouble until then - but will Contador do the same?

Stage 2 - Les Essarts => Les Essarts (Team Time Trial)

The best thing about cycling is the unpredictability of the sport.  Just when you think you know the riders, know the teams, know the conditions, someone will unexpectedly pull out a breathtaking performance, or suddenly crash, or Mother Nature and Lady Luck will intervene just to keep things fresh.  Today was one of those days.

The team time trial is not a stage where you expect the unexpected.  On such a  flat stage under good conditions like today, without wind or rain to mix things up, you expect to see the best performance that you know the teams can do.  This assumes, of course, that you know the best the teams can do.  Before today, we clearly didn't.

After yesterday's crash that put him 1:20 behind the Tour leader, Alberto Contador's Saxobank-Sungard team went out first.  Without any knowledge of the other teams' times, the Danish-registered team simply went like hell for the finish line in the hopes that the speed would be enough for a good time.  The brutal tactic saw them drop several riders along the way, but the requisite five riders crossed the line in just over 25 minutes.

It didn't work as well as they'd hoped, though.  When Team Rabobank went out as one of the teams touted to do well, they smashed Saxobank's time at the first checkpoint and finished 15 seconds ahead of Saxobank's final time.  This wasn't the end to Contador's bad day.  The other good time trial teams, Radioshack, HTC Highroad and Sky, also came in around 20 seconds faster than Saxobank, until Garmin-Cervelo stormed over the line in 24 minutes, 48 seconds, a time that was to win them the stage and put sprinter Thor Hushovd in the yellow jersey.  Even Leopard Trek, the Luxembourg team of Contador's rival Andy Schleck, came in only 4 seconds off the pace, hauled over the line by Fabian Cancellara, the big time trial world champion known as 'Spartacus'.  Already 1:14 behind Andy, Contador can't have been happy at losing another 24 seconds.

But it was BMC, the team of Aussie GC hopeful Cadel Evans, that took the day's spotlight.  Boasting only Cadel and American George Hincapie as its big names, the team of solid but otherwise unremarkable riders pulled off a near-perfect ride, right from their smooth, well-rehearsed dismount down the start ramp.  Likely thanks to Cadel taking more and longer turns at the front of the train than any other rider, all nine riders stayed together right through the first checkpoint to throw up a time of 9:04, third-best of the 22 teams.  Their second checkpoint wasn't as promising, having had two riders go off the back of the train, but with Cadel's dogged perseverance the team kept up the high pace to come in second - a mere four seconds behind Garmin, leaving Cadel only one second away from cycling's biggest prize, after Hushovd and Tour co-leader, Garmin teammate David Millar.

BMC also had seven riders cross the finish line within one second of each other, more than any of the other five top teams.  It seems the US-registered, Swiss-trained team has been quietly working on their team time trial skills, an effort that has clearly paid off today in making them the second-fastest time trial team in the world.  Pretty damn good for a team where you can't name half the riders (Cadel, Hincapie, Marcus Burghardt, Ivan Santaromita, Michael Schar...no, I can actually name half).

Today's result cannot leave Alberto Contador a happy man, but if past experience is anything to go by, it will certainly leave him a determined one.  But will his determination match up to that of Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans?

Stage 1 - Passage du Gois => Les Herbiers

I wonder if the Tour de France has ever had such a dramatic or traumatic start as it did today.  To begin with, this year's Tour went straight to the first stage of racing, without a time trial prologue the day before as it usually does.  This meant there was an inordinate amount of pressure and prestige associated with today's stage - for once the stage winner was guaranteed the maillot jaune, and due to the type of stage and the new points system, the green jersey and the polka-dot jersey as well.  How are you meant to wear them all?  Layer them like tank tops, maybe?

Anyway, it began like any old Tour de France stage, a breakaway leaping off at the 0-kilometre mark and pulling away from the peloton, who were happy to take it easy today.  The three at the tete de la course, Perrig Quemener of Europcar, Jeremy Roy of Francais des Jeux and Lieuwe Westra of Vacansoleil, had an excellent run, sitting up to 7 minutes ahead of the main peloton for almost four hours, until the peloton finally reeled them in at the 20 kilometres to go mark.  And that was when the chaos began.  Around the 13-kilometre mark an errant spectator on the side of the road caused Astana's Maxim Iglinsky to swerve and crash into the rider next to him, causing a domino effect right across the road, bringing down several riders and building a roadblock that stopped all but 30 riders in the main peloton.  Taken to the front of the peloton by their teams, top GC contenders Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans both escaped the carnage, but not so for defending champion, Spaniard Alberto Contador.  Contador was caught up in the chaos and while thankfully unharmed, he finished the stage one minute and 20 seconds behind his two main rivals.

Ahead of the crash zone, 30 lucky riders were still racing towards the finish line in Les Herbiers.  Despite being touted as a good stage for Omega-Pharma Lotto's Phillipe Gilbert or one of the sprinters, chances had suddenly opened up for the other teams with most of the sprint lead-out trains still caught up back at the 13-k mark.  Then remarkably, half the front group of riders crashed again just inside the 3-kilometre mark, and while Andy Schleck went down this time, Cadel was still up the front of the pack, being protected by BMC teammate George Hincapie and waiting for the finish line to appear.  At 1 kilometre to go Phillipe Gilbert was getting in position when time-trial world champion Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek) shot out like a bullet, forcing Gilbert  to go for the sprint earlier than planned.  Cancellara disappeared from sight at 400 metres to go, and suddenly Cadel Evans had broken off the front and was chasing down Gilbert for the stage victory.  Though making up ground rapidly, Cadel hit the finish line before he could catch Gilbert, and had to settle for second place three seconds behind Gilbert and 3 seconds ahead of the rest of the main group, as well as Gilbert's green jersey the following day (as Gilbert will be wearing the yellow jersey and Cadel is second on the green jersey points table).  The main peloton limped in over a minute later, Contador looking rather glum.

Despite going down in the second crash and losing time, Andy Schleck recorded a finishing time 6 seconds behind Gilbert along with the rest of the front group of riders, thanks to a rule that ensures that anyone who crashes within the final three kilometres is given the same finishing time as the group with whom they were riding.  Pretty dramatic day overall.  Question is now - can Contador recover?

Preview of le Tour

It’s the day before the start of the most prestigious race in cycling, and Tour fever is building up.

All around the world, cycling fans are buying their popcorn and race guides, settling in for the biggest three weeks of the year on the cycling calendar.  And as the excitement heats up, so do the possibilities, and this year’s race could go umpteen different ways.

First and foremost, there is the question of the Spaniard, Alberto Contador. A cloud hangs over the defending champion’s future after being implicated in a doping scandal at last year’s Tour de France.  The winner of the 2009 and 2010 maillot jaune is scheduled to ride the Tour for Team Saxobank-Sunguard, but if the conclusion to this nine-month affair goes down in the next three weeks, Contador could find himself out of the Tour and the race for the yellow jersey blown wide open.

This of course brings us to the question of who will win the maillot jaune?  While Contador is the premiere candidate to take out cycling’s most coveted prize, several other names are also on the shortlist, the most prominent being Andy Schleck.  The Luxembourg 26-year-old has won the white jersey (under-25 riders category) in the Tour for the past three years and was looking good for the major prize last year, until a controversial accident put Contador just ahead of him.  Even so, Schleck stunned the cycling world a few days later in the time trial, showing an improvement at the discipline and keeping pace with Alberto Contador in a stage where Contador was expected to consolidate his lead beyond all doubt.  It still wasn’t enough for Schleck, who came second for the second year in a row and took out his third white jersey instead.  With Contador’s future unstable and another’s year training under his belt, this may be the year where Andy makes his break.

Then, according to the Australian commentators at least, there’s also Cadel Evans to consider.  The Geelong boy who was the 2009 world road race champion has come second in the Tour twice and was leading last year’s Tour, until an early fall left him with a broken arm and cost him 10 minutes and the yellow jersey.  Despite this setback, Cadel has been in excellent form the past few years and after a more careful preparation for this year’s Tour, every Australian is asking the same question: will this year be Cadel’s year?

 

Also tipped as contenders for the top spot are Italian Tour veteran Ivan Basso, young Dutch rider Robert Gesink, now the leader of Team Rabobank at just 25, and the current Olympic champion, Spaniard Samuel Sanchez, as well as Andy’s older brother and teammate, Fränk Schleck.

The competition for the other jerseys is less notorious but every bit as fierce.  The white jersey is open for the first time in three years, with Andy Schleck finally out of contention, leaving Robert Gesink and Team Liquigas’ Roman Kreuziger as the two favourites.  The polka-dot King of the Mountain (climbing category) jersey is less certain, while the question of the green sprinter’s jersey comes down to whether the strategies of the “God of Thunder”, Norwegian Thor Hushovd or those of “Manx Missile”, Brit Mark Cavendish are better suited to the category.  All will be decided at the final stage in Paris, so until then, vive le Tour!

The Media Cycle

This is an old article,  written whilst working as the Press Conference Co-ordinator in the Media Centre at the 2010 UCI World Championships in Geelong, Australia.  Bon appetit!

The Media Cycle

"I'm off to interview Matti now," the Danish journalist says to me on her way out the Media Centre door. "Shall I say hello to him from you?"

She is, of course, talking about Matti Breschel, a cyclist on the Pro-Tour team of Saxobank and one of the top cyclists on the world circuit.  I give the journalist a very enthusiastic ‘yes’ as she pushes the glass door open in front of her and heads off to her interview.

This particular journalist is only one of around 100 journalists and photographers floating around the Media Centre at Deakin University’s Waterfront Campus in Geelong.  Reporters from all over Australia and many more from countries as diverse as Luxembourg, Brazil, Italy and Japan have gathered here to watch the 2010 UCI Road World Cycling Championships, the most prestigious event in world road cycling, second only to the Tour de France itself.  Like all the rest, she has been here since Monday or Tuesday; like all the rest, she won’t be leaving until everything is over and the news has moved elsewhere, late on Sunday night.

The UCI, or l’Union Cycliste Internationale (International Cycling Union in English), is the official governing body of world cycling, both track and road.  Its most well-known role is as the administrator of the Road World Championships, the annual contest of the best riders in world cycling competing for cycling’s second most coveted prize, the Rainbow Jersey.  Though the UCI was founded in April 1900, making its headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, the Road World Championships were first held in 1927, with the individual time-trial championships being added in 1994.  Since then there have only been 11 winners of the time trial - Jan Ullrich took out two titles in 1999 and 2001, but this year all eyes were on the only two riders who are three-time World Time-Trial Champions: Australia’s own Michael Rogers, for the first time riding the Championships on home soil, and Switzerland’s defending champion Fabian Cancellara, each hoping to secure an unprecedented fourth title for his country.

Rogers certainly didn’t disappoint the home crowd, whipping around to finish his two laps of the course in one hour and 34 seconds and take the leader’s position from Spain’s Luis-Léon Sanchez.  The excitement built a second time as Australia’s final rider, Richie Porte, left the start line two minutes before Fabian Cancellara, but the Swiss proved too fast for the two Aussie boys and showed the world once again why he is the Time-Trial Champion.  Finishing in just over 58 minutes, Cancellara entered the history books as the first rider ever to win four world titles in the time-trial, as well as the first rider to win two world titles back-to-back – twice (2006/2007, 2009/2010).

History is another major aspect of the race for the media.  As the results came through for the under-23 men’s road race, the television commentators became rather confused.  Though the gold medal had undoubtedly gone to Australia’s Michael Matthews, and no-one disputed that Germany had won silver, the bronze medal was a lot less clear.  “We’ll have to wait for the official announcement, but it looks like they have the same time on our screens,” the distinctive voice of Phil Liggett intoned on the live broadcast.  Media directors sent volunteers scrambling for the books as journalists began clamouring to know the last time in world cycling history that a dead heat had been called for a podium position.  Such an event is so rare that even the official Media Guide, a publication distributed to journalists with profiles of the riders and details of the course as well as tables and statistics for all previous years and winners, didn’t have a listing for it.  The USA’s Taylor Phinney and Canada’s Guillaume Boivin made history in under-23 men’s cycling with their identical time.  The following day, the Media Centre had copies of the photo finish available for distribution to the journalists, showing the wheels of the two bikes both nudging the line.

By Sunday morning, the day of the biggest and final climactic race – the Elite Men’s Road Race – the desks in the Media Centre were littered with similar sheets of paper, proclaiming the winners of all the previous races, detailing the histories of the winners, and advising the media of progress in the doping investigations.  Even as the world’s best competed for gold in Geelong, four Spanish cyclists, including current Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, were implicated in illegal drug use, with three riders being suspended and Contador under investigation.  For the journalists who have followed cycling for several years, it was shades of 2006, where the winner, America’s Floyd Landis, eventually admitted to doping in the Tour and was stripped of his yellow jersey, which was instead handed to the runner-up, Oscar Freire Gomez of Spain.  At a press conference the previous day, the president of the UCI, Pat McQuaid, refused to answer questions about Contador’s case.

“There’s an ongoing result management process happening that I can’t comment on; let’s just wait for the result,” he replied to the insistent questions of the media.

Should Contador be found guilty of doping and stripped of his title, the honour of the yellow jersey would fall to Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, the winner of the white jersey competition for the past three years and one of the favourites for the Tour de France title, along with the 2009 World Champion, Australia’s Cadel Evans.  Winning last year’s World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland, barely five minutes down the road from his European home, this year Cadel is back to defend his rainbow jersey, just 20 minutes down the road from his Australian home in Barwon Heads.  Though losing his chance at Tour de France glory this year from a fractured elbow in a crash, his form has otherwise been very good, and for the home crowd excited to see the World Championships on Australian turf, there is but one question on everyone’s lips: can Cadel do it again?

The morning after our first meeting, the Danish journalist passes the Media Centre reception desk again.  “How’d your interview with Matti go?  Was he nice?”  I ask.

“Oh, it went OK,” the journalist replies.  “He was really cool about it.  Matti has a great sense of humour.”  She grins at me, knowing my particular interest in the Danish rider.  “You should have come along!”

I smile.  “Oh, if only I could have.”