Stage 2: Visé – Tournai

It was a stage of injuries, of sprinters, of chateaux and long breakaways, and a stage of rising above.  Stage 2 of the 2012 Tour de France from Visé to Tournai saw all the things we’ve come to expect from the paramount race of the world – pain, triumph, inhuman achievement and a gripping finish to keep us all guessing.

After the crashes and dramatic finish of yesterday’s stage into Seraing, the peloton started off slowly, savouring the beautiful panoramas and elegant cathedrals of central Belgium.  It was 22 kilometres into the stage before Anthony Roux of FDJ-BigMat attempted a breakaway and was quickly joined by Europcar’s Christophe Kern and Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank’s Michael Morkov, wearer of the polka-dot jersey after his participation in yesterday’s breakaway.   The three rode rapidly away from the peloton to build up a lead that reached around eight minutes, Roux leaning on his handlebars as though for a time trial to avoid using his broken left hand, the result of one of yesterday’s crashes.

The young Frenchman wasn’t the only rider putting on a brave face for the stage.  World time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) was also in considerable pain from a fractured scaphoid in his left hand which had caused temporary doubt as to whether he would start the stage.   The German’s Tour de France certainly hadn’t improved, with a puncture in the prologue time trial preceding the Stage 1 crash which left him in a plastic brace.

The breakaway trio’s lead had dropped down to 6’15” as they passed through the city of Namur and began the climb up to the King of the Mountains point at the Côte de la Citadelle de Namur, a Roman-era fortress sitting at the top of the winding cobbles.  Morkov dashed ahead of Kern and Roux to take the single point on offer, extending his lead over the polka-dot jersey competition to three points.  Objective achieved, Morkov assumed a position at the back of the leading group and let the French pair do the work for the rest of the stage.

The gap quickly receding, the idle peloton realised they’d left it too late to catch the breakaway before the sprint point at Soignies, allowing Kern, Roux and Morkov respectively to take top points, and instead prepared to sprint for 4th place.  The teams of the sprinters, already with a rider each at the front to do the pacemaking, sent up their leadout trains to contend for the vital green jersey points.  Liquigas-Cannondale’s train was pulling for Peter Sagan, but Australian outfit Orica-GreenEDGE once again slipped sprinter Matthew Goss up the side to take the win ahead of Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) and Mark Cavendish (Sky).

Intermediate sprint aside, the race continued west across Belgium as the lead group’s advantage slowly ticked down.  As the peloton loomed behind, Roux decided that the attitude of the day was ‘never say die’ and attacked again with 31 kilometres to go, an action that earned him the Combative Rider award for the day, while Kern and Morkov were swallowed up by the quickly-moving peloton and promptly spat out at the back end.  As the pace increased, the hopeful teams of the sprinters moved to the front of the peloton for a second time and began preparing their sprint trains for the battle royale that was to be the stage finish.

At the rear of the peloton, though, Argos-Shimano’s sprinter Marcel Kittel was having trouble.  While his team led the peloton charging towards Tournai, Kittel was falling off the back of the main field, his expression strained.  Despite the help of teammates Kittel was unable to keep in touch any longer and dropped off, victim of a stomach bug, surrendering his chance at the day’s stage win.

The front of the peloton barely noticed his absence, flying towards the finish at nearly 70kph, scooping up the still-fighting Roux along the way.  The key sprint teams of Liquigas-Cannondale, Lotto Belisol, Orica-GreenEDGE and Sky Procycling were jostling for position as King Albert II of Belgium, as keen a cycling fan as his countrymen, waited for the riders at the finish.  Though Lotto Belisol appeared to have the win lined up neatly for Andre Greipel, Liquigas-Cannondale’s Peter Sagan clinging to his back wheel, the aptly-named ‘Manx Missile’ of Mark Cavendish shot past Greipel to take his 21^st Tour de France stage win, Orica-GreenEDGE’s Matt Goss again slipping up the side to take third.

The win has done little for the overall standings, Peter Sagan taking the green sprinter’s jersey the only change in the classifications.  Tomorrow the Tour heads into northern France and more medium mountains, a newfound battleground for Sagan which may enable him to consolidate his lead on the maillot vert.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour 2011

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is the oldest stage race in Australia and is even among the oldest in the world.  The UCI Oceania Tour race travels around Victoria over five days and attracts not only the Australian Continental teams, but even some ProTour teams as well.  Previous winners include riders like Aussie pros Baden Cooke, Stuart O'Grady and Simon Gerrans, as well as British rider Bradley Wiggins, who won the last Tour in 2009.  The JHST was put on hold due to the UCI Road World Championships being held in Geelong last year, but it was back with a bang for 2011 and certainly attracted its fair share of attention.

Stage 1 - Whittlesea to Ballarat included a pair of sprint points at Riddells Creek and Creswick and some categorised climbs in Woodend and Daylesford.  By the time the race reached Creswick, around 20 kilometres out of Ballarat, a group of six riders including Drapac Cycling's Rhys Pollock had an eight-minute lead on the peloton.  They raced into Ballarat, blowing away the Mocka's predicted arrival times at each check, where Pollock sprinted away to take the stage and the yellow jersey of the leader ahead of Australian National Road Race Champion Jack Bobridge and Team Genesys' Nathan Haas, amongst others.

Stage 2 stepped back in time briefly, with the stage start in the main street of Ballarat's 1850s-era replica gold town Sovereign Hill.  The riders crossed the line at the firing of the redcoat soldier's musket and made their way out of the tourist park and onto the main road towards Geelong, by which time the peloton was already losing riders.  Two sprint points, a Category 3 climb and a Category 4 climb later, two riders finally got away at 50 kilometres to go, only to be caught five kilometres from the end of the stage in Geelong.  The consequent bunch sprint cleared the stage for South African Team MTN Qhubeka's Reinardt Janse van Rensburg to take the stage win, while Drapac Professional Cycling put in the hard yards to keep Rhys Pollock in yellow.

Stage 3 took the riders on a beautiful loop from Geelong down to Lorne and then back up the spectacularly scenic Great Ocean Road towards Port Phillip Heads.  The peloton was about 30 kilometres out of Geelong before they let a breakaway of four go, none of them threatening enough in the general classification to warrant a chase.  The peloton and particularly the breakaway battled the crosswinds as they rode along the Victorian coast on the world's longest war memorial, but the quartet was caught just 20 kilometres from the stage finish in Drysdale.  By this point ProTeam Skil-Shimano had joined Drapac on the front in the pace-making, Drapac protecting their yellow while Skil-Shimano was hoping for a stage win.  Both teams got their wish, with German Skil-Shimano rider Marcel Kittel sprinting to his 16th win of the season and Rhys Pollock finishing with the bunch to maintain his overall lead.

But Pollock lost hope of keeping his lead any longer on Stage 4, the 'queen stage' beginning in Sorrento and finishing with a triple lap up and over the Category 1 climb of Arthur's Seat.  An early break, aggressively led by Genesys' Patrick Shaw looking to put teammate Nathan Haas in yellow as well as defend his lead in the sprint classification, went off the front and defended an advantage of around three to four minutes until Saxobank-Sungard, Drapac and Garmin-Cervelo banded together and brought the break back into the fold on the second ascent of Arthur's Seat.  As the climbs took their toll on the riders it was left to a select few to race for the finish.  Russian Katusha rider Egor Silin took his first pro victory with a stage win, while up-and-coming Genesys rider Nathan Haas pipped Jack Bobridge to the line and claimed the yellow.

The final day of the race saw the riders bring it home to Melbourne for the final criterium around Lygon St.  The threat of poor weather didn't keep the fans away, and Melbourne's cycling enthusiasts crowded Argyle Square to see the local heroes and overseas legends before the start of the day's racing.  By 3pm the women's crit had finished and the crowds began lining the street as the starting gun went for the final time and the riders began racing north up Lygon St.  The flat crit-style stage wasn't conducive to breakaways, and though Cameron Wurf, Wes Sulzberger and Adam Phelan, amongst others, did try, the peloton made sure they were back in the bunch coming up on the final finish.  Despite the bunch sprint, Skil-Shimano's Marcel Kittel was first over the line easily to take his second victory at the Sun Tour and bring his season total up to 17.  Nathan Haas, meanwhile, was completely overwhelmed at having won the general classification, sprints classification and young rider classification, while his team of Genesys Wealth Advisors won the teams classification.  Talk about rainbow jerseys!

And as a happy ending to a happy tale, Haas has since received a two-year pro contract to ride for Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up good young Aussie talent.  If this year is a precedent, he'll be riding for GreenEDGE soon enough.

Jayco Herald Sun Tour - A Fangirl Perspective

The best part about having a crit-style final stage is that the riders treat it differently to a normal stage in a stage race. When your day's racing is 10 laps of the same circuit your warm-up seemingly doesn't need to be as intense as for six hours through small towns in country Victoria, because for until 10 minutes before the start of the race nearly all of the riders were relaxing in their team tents in the small square beside Lygon St and mingling with the fans.

Of course, for the true GreenEDGE fan-in-waiting, the number of Australian riders was brilliant. The number of ProTeams there was also pretty awesome. Needless to say, until such time as the racing started I was having the absolute time of my life running around amongst all the team and sponsor stalls, having my photo taken with every rider I could find.

   I was stoked to see the Garmin-Cervelo team scoot past me, so I stopped for a quick photo with larrikin-esque Aussie Heinrich Haussler, as well as current Australian National Time Trial Champion Cameron Meyer. Unfortunately I was too slow to grab his brother Travis riding behind him. Both brothers are riding for Australia's Team GreenEDGE next season.

  

But the fun didn't stop there. I found Cameron Wurf, who was an absolute darling with a lovely smile and quite happy to stop for a quick photo with me.

 I also found Team Garmin's legendary Jack Bobridge, current Australian National Road Race Champion and former World Under-23 Road Race Champion, who recently broke the world record for the 4000m on the track by a full three seconds.  Needless to say, he's also been signed to GreenEDGE next year.

Adam Hansen is, unfortunately, still riding for Omega Pharma-Quickstep, as it's now called, next year. Despite being a very popular rider when I found him he still had a big grin for the cameras.

 Jonathan Cantwell rated a photo because he's Australian (though not WorldTour), but also as the winner of a crit in Ballarat last year.  He beat both Meyers brothers, which annoyed me at the time chiefly because I'd never heard of Jonathan Cantwell.  Can't say that anymore!

 Naturally I eventually tracked down Nathan Haas, the rising star that shone brighter than all others at the JHST this year, taking home all bar two jerseys.  The 22-year-old has been snaffled up for next year's pro season by none other than - guess who - Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up all the rising Aussie talents (until GreenEDGE snaffles them back, of course).

 Steele von Hoff, who like Heinrich Haussler has an awesome European name but looks as ocker as can be, comfortably won the Tour of Gippsland and didn't mind me gatecrashing the 'we're waiting to go onstage and receive our jersey' boy's room to get a photo.
 

 Taswegian Bernie Sulzberger is the older brother of ProTeam FDJ rider Wes Sulzberger.  Had I been able to find Wes, I'd've asked him to pass along a message to Jeremy Roy from his Australian fans.

  Pat Shaw is a Ballarat boy and hometown hero, thus warranting a photo.  But it's not our mutual origins that are the cause of our grins.  No, we're laughing because Pat is hiding the GreenEDGE Cycling cap he stole off my head behind his back.  No need to tell you which team he's NOT riding for next year, then.

I got so excited when I saw this fellow's name on the start list. Marcel Kittel has ridden the Vuelta a Espana and won a stage this year - How to Win Fans and Excite Fangirls. Speaking of stage wins, he took out Stages 3 and 5 of the JHST too - as a cool-down from the Vuelta, I expect.

 It wasn't just individual riders I found floating around, either.  As a non-ProTour team and an international team, none of the cycling aficionados there had any idea who these boys were.  As such the MTN Qhubeka were relaxing together in their tent and all jumped up and joined the circle when I asked for a photo.  Second from the left is current Namibian road and time trial champion Loto Petrus, hence the unusual maillot.
 

Despite having a Russian best friend, I've rarely been so excited over anything Russian as when I saw this uniform riding around.  A real-live ProTour team riding around with Tour de France vets?  I was stoked, even though Giro, Vuelta and Tour rider Vladimir Isaichev was nowhere to be seen.  I did, however, get the above photo taken with Nikolay Trusov on the left, and I was almost speechless to be in the presence of Egor Silin in the centre, who was on this year's Katusha team for the TdF.  The Colossus on the right is, oddly enough for the pro-home-nation team, Belgian Stijn Vandenbergh.

I did ask if I could take the sign-on board home as a souvenir, but apparently Lord Mayor Robert Doyle got first dibs on behalf of the city of Melbourne.  Sigh.  The perks of power.

 In the meantime, I was tracking down the SBS journos - Anthony Tan, SBS Cycling Central columnist and post-stage dissecter for the Tour de France.

 

Even cooler - Matt Keenan commentates the first half of each Tour de France stage, before Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen bring it home.

 This familiar face first appeared to me in my press room at the Road World Championships in Geelong last year.  Mike Tomalaris, fresh off the set of a live edition of SBS Cycling Central at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour.  Is there a higher aspiration?

 

Saved the most special for last...that GreenEDGE Cycling cap goes remarkably well next to the fellow who's bankrolling the whole venture - Gerry Ryan, owner of Jayco Caravans, has promised funding for GreenEDGE for the next three years.  Three years of sheer delight and excitement for me.  He more than deserves a photo for that.