Stage 14: Limoux - Foix

To say it was a day of drama would be an understatement. Scandals, sportsmanship and surprises barely touches on the 191 kilometre stage from Limoux to Foix through the Pyrénées mountains. As always, the Tour de France provided entertainment, sport and a compelling story to rival all others.

Despite being classified as a high mountains stage, with two Category 1 climbs in the latter part of the stage, the attacks began from the get-go, several riders trying to break clear of the peloton and establish a lead. Unsurprisingly, it was boy wonder Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) who was the successful rider, finding himself ahead of the peloton in the company of Steven Kruijswijk (Rabobank) and Sergio Paulinho (Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank) after attacking on the descent of Category 2 climb Col du Portel. The trio took advantage of the chaos on the descent as the peloton split in two with a gap of almost a minute in between. Even though the two main groups were maintaining a high average speed, Sagan’s group was slowly edging away from the nearest leaders, second by second.

Seeing that this break appeared to be succeeding, already having lasted longer and stronger than previous attempts, eight riders jumped off the front of the peloton in an attempt to join them. The strong riders in the group helped bridge the gap to the three riders leading the stage, now 1’12” ahead of the pursuing peloton. The lead ballooned out over the next 20 kilometres or so, the break building up an astonishing gap of 11 minutes as they approached the intermediate sprint.

The only real sprinter in the group, Sagan wasn’t expecting competition from the other breakaway members for the 20 points on offer at the intermediate. Just to be on the safe side, Sagan sat on the front of the breakaway as they approached the sprint point of Tarasçon-Sur-Ariège, nervously checking behind him for any sign of a response. Obviously Gorka Izaguirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) has a sense of humour, because the Basque rider decided to indulge Sagan’s paranoia, feinting to the right in the last few hundred metres as though to attack. The Spaniard was only in jest, though, and Sagan claimed his precious 20 points uncontested.

The breakaway’s lead had gone out to almost 15 minutes as they began the first of the two Category 1 climbs for the day, the Port de Lers. The weather began to deteriorate towards the top of the climb, riders calling for rain jackets to protect against the incoming mist and cold. Cyril Gautier (Europcar), who had been part of the day’s breakaway, had a puncture which forced him out of the group and left him chasing the dectet all the way down the far side of the Port de Lers and up the subsequent Mur de Péguère, finally catching them early on the climb.

While Sky tapped out the pace as the peloton ascended the Port de Lers, 16 minutes ahead on the Mur, Luis Léon Sánchez (Rabobank) was taking his turn at the pace-making. The Spaniard was forcing a few riders off the back of the breakaway with his tempo, which was aimed at dropping Slovakian sprinter Peter Sagan, who would be able to beat the rest of the breakaway in a sprint finish. The tactic failed to work, Sagan one of only four riders to join Sánchez in the leading group of the stage. The 22-year-old sprinted ahead to follow Sandy Casar (FDJ-Bigmat) and Gorka Izaguirre over the final climb of the day.

Behind them in the peloton, chaos was reigning as the main group of riders passed over the preceding climb. What was later identified as a collection of tacks scattered over the road was causing punctures in the tyres of all the top GC contenders, many of whom were stranded far from their team cars when the punctures occurred. The incident first came to light when defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC) was seen standing at the King of the Mountains point atop the Port de Lers with a punctured back tyre. The 35-year-old barely maintained his calm as he waited for his team car to make its way through the grupetto to change his tyre. Swapping with a passing teammate, he began chasing down the group of yellow jersey Bradley Wiggins (Sky) which was now almost a minute ahead. Evans’ day didn’t get any better, having to stop for two more tyre changes in the next 10 minutes.

Evans wasn’t the only rider affected. Around 20 other riders were also forced to change tyres, Wiggins opting to change his whole bike after he punctured. The worst off was Astana’s Robert Kiserlovski, whose puncture caused him to crash on the descent and abandon the Tour with a suspected broken collarbone.

It didn’t get better. Though Wiggins had called a truce in the yellow jersey group, waiting for Evans to catch up before they continued racing, Team Europcar’s Pierre Rolland appeared not to be aware of the situation behind and attack the groupe maillot jaune, building up almost a two minute lead. Though Wiggins clearly still wanted to wait for Evans, who was falling further behind with each wheel change despite BMC Racing Team pacing him back towards the lead, the teams of Lotto Belisol and Liquigas-Cannondale made the decision to start chasing down Rolland. The young Frenchman was high enough in the GC to start challenging the positions of their riders in the top 10. Rolland caught, the pace slackened off again for Evans to catch up, the atmosphere in the group clearly souring towards the impudent Rolland.

Meanwhile in the breakaway, Sánchez had decided it was time to be rid of Sagan in the interests of the stage win and began a solo break with 11 kilometres left in the stage. The two-time defending Spanish time trial champion caught Sagan on a snack break and managed to put a gap between himself and his fellow escapees, which only expanded over the next few minutes. The three-time Tour stage winner managed to hold off the pursuing four to take a stage victory which has been the only ray of light for a team battered by misfortune at this year’s Tour. Sagan led the rest of the breakaway to the finish three-quarters of a minute later, the main body of riders rolling over the line 18’15” after Sánchez, leaving the overall standings unchanged.

Tomorrow’s stage from Samatan to Pau is fairly straightforward and flat, only a couple of small categorised climbs to contend with. It should be a stage for the sprinters like André Greipel, Peter Sagan, Matt Goss and Mark Cavendish – that is, assuming the saboteurs from today’s stage have no ill-advised plans for a repeat performance.

Stage 11: Albertville - La Toussuire-Les Sybelles

Today was the day.  This was the stage we’d all been waiting for, the decider, the bike race to end all bike races.  It happened.  And it was spectacular – spectacularly destructive, spectacularly revealing, spectacularly tenacious.   Stage 11 reminded that this is the Tour de France, of whom only the greatest are worthy, and today we finally learnt who the worthy riders are.

It panned out almost exactly the same as the day before.  Today’s stage began with a large breakaway that formed almost as soon as the riders left the neutral zone.  The 30 or so riders moved fluidly between several breakaway groups ahead of the peloton for the first hour or more, being dropped, catching or attacking in turn.   As the group reached the top of the first climb of the day, the hors catégorie Col de la Madeleine, the 26 riders were 2’55” ahead of the Team Sky-led peloton.

Due to the pace being set by Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen, riders were dropping off the back of the peloton as the climbed the Madeleine.  Behind Boasson Hagen, four more Sky riders were waiting in line to do the pace-making, willing to lay everything on the line for their team leader, Bradley Wiggins.  Boasson Hagen’s high tempo had cut nearly a minute off the breakaway’s lead, before Christophe Kern (Europcar) took over the pace-making from teammate Davide Malacarne and began stepping up the speed of the escape group.

The King of the Mountain point was passed without incident by the breakaway, Astana’s Fredrik Kessiakoff leaping forward for second place in an attempt to regain his polka-dot jersey.  Kessiakoff continued over the top of the climb to attack the breakaway on the descent with Peter Velits (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), one of two groups to do so, splintering the breakaway into three.  The first two groups rejoined in time for the intermediate sprint at Saint-Etienne-de-Cuines, uncontested due to the lack of sprinters, Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale) leading the second group across the line.

As the leading group began the second HC climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Fer, the second group on the road bridged gap, forming a 22-man leading group again.  The group soon began dropping riders, as the third rider of the day dropped out of the Tour de France.  Rabobank sprinter Mark Renshaw joined Vacansoleil-DCMs Lieuwe Westra and Gustav Larsson on the list of riders withdrawn from the Tour’s 11th stage.  Riders continued to yoyo on and off the back of the breakaway as Kern continued the pace-making up front and Sky set the tempo further down.

The expected attack came partway up the Col de la Croix de Fer.  Sky made no reaction as the wearer of the best young rider’s white jersey, Tejay van Garderen, disappeared up the climb.  The reason for van Garderen’s attack was soon evident: a few minutes later, BMC team leader Cadel Evans attacked as well, racing ahead to join his young teammate.  The leading Sky rider, Australian Michael Rogers, began increasing the tempo of the peloton even more in an attempt to bridge the gap to Evans, who was by then sitting comfortably on the wheel of Tejay van Garderen.  He didn’t look comfortable for long, however, van Garderen’s accelerations dropping his team leader off his wheel far too easily.  Even with the assistance of Amael Moinard, dropping back from the breakaway, it was too much for Evans, and the Skymobile came forward to swallow all three back up again.

Thanks to Sky’s accelerations, the groupe Maillot Jaune had been reduced to just 10 riders; team leaders and the best climbers.  There were just seven men in the lead group just over two minutes ahead as the crossed the top of the Croix de Fer, led by Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) and Pierre Rolland (Europcar).  The riders began attacking each other on the way down, but it was Rolland again who led them over the third and final climb of the day before they reached the mountaintop finish.  A group of three formed at the head of the race as Rolland, Kiserlovski and Vasil Kiryienka (Movistar) began descending the Col de Mollard.  The glory was shortlived, however, Rolland crashing on the descent.  Bleeding from his elbow but otherwise unhurt, Rolland was able to remount and try to chase down the leading pair a few seconds ahead of him, catching them 23 kilometres from the end of the stage.

Back together in the lead, Rolland attacked his breakmates, trying to set himself up for a solo stage win.  There were attacks back in the main field, too,  Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto Belisol) and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) among the four riders who jumped of the front of the peloton.  Forced to chase, Sky super-domestique Chris Froome began setting a pace that dropped all bar a few riders.  Fortunately for Wiggins, one of the dropped riders was Cadel Evans, who had teammate Tejay van Garderen thoroughly confused with his inability to keep up.  Van Garderen also dropped back to pace Evans over the climb, the pair unable to rejoin the yellow jersey group and crossing the line over three minutes behind the winner of the stage.

Froome and Wiggins, meanwhile, had dropped everyone else and were forging ahead to join the breakaway of van den Broeck and Nibali just up the road.  Having managed this, Froome then went to the head of the group and accelerated so hard that Wiggins dropped off the back.  Froome was quickly instructed to stop pace-making and go back to help Wiggins, stranded behind the group of four.  Picking up Kiryienka along the way, the reformed group of seven continued their high pace towards the stage finish on La Toussuire.

But they weren’t the only ones out there.  Pierre Rolland, with a minute over his nearest pursuers, repeated his feat of last year soloed to a mountaintop stage victory, the day after the stage win of his team leader, Thomas Voeckler.  The French fans were in for a bigger surprise, because young FDJ-Bigmat star Thibaut Pinot managed to outsprint Froome to take second to make it a French 1-2, Wiggins rolling across the line two seconds later, one and a half minutes ahead of Evans.

Stage 12 is a medium mountains stage, with two Category 1 climbs close to the start and a long flat towards the finish.  This is the kind of stage that encourages breakaways, and would definitely suit the skills of a rider like Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) or maybe even Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD).  It’s unlikely to see the big GC contenders try anything one a stage with such a flat finish, but being the Tour de France, anything could happen.

Stage 12: Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne - Annonay-Davizieux

Despite the climbs at the beginning of the stage, the 208 kilometres from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Annonay-Davizieux were essentially flat, meaning a calm day. That’s not to say it didn’t have its moments of excitement – that, and the heated battle for the green jersey today became an open flame as the race heads towards Paris.

Compared to the past few days, Stage 12 was much more relaxed, the peloton having a day off as they rolled across south-eastern France. It was tipped as a stage for breakaways, and the successful one went off the front around 10 kilometres from the end of the neutral zone, another big bunch of 19. The failure of the peloton to react after the break reached one minute was the signal that they didn’t plan to and the breakaway was free to go.

They didn’t go very far, though, never quite reaching two minutes before riders began being spat out on the Col du Grand Cucheron. Soon enough there was an 11-man lead one minute ahead of a three-man chase group, which was a further 1’10” ahead of the idle peloton. Of course, it was destined not to last. By the time the lead group began the ascent of the second climb, the Col Du Granier, the chase group had collapsed and a series of attacks from the peloton meant there were riders all over the road.

There were soon fewer riders on the road than had started the day. Argos-Shimano’s leadout man-cum-secondary sprinter Tom Veelers abandoned the stage after 65 kilometres of racing, while Cofidis climber David Moncoutié was shattered at having to abandon his farewell Tour de France with a possible broken collarbone after crashing on the descent of the Col du Grand Cucheron. But the Tour de France doesn’t wait for abandons, the now-five leaders approaching the King of the Mountains point atop the Col du Grand Cucheron and sprinting for the 10 points on offer.

Behind them at the peloton a third chase group was forming, Liquigas-Cannondale sprinter Peter Sagan obviously hoping to beat the peloton to the sprint point. Orica-GreenEDGE definitely didn’t like that, chasing the green jersey for their sprinter Matt Goss, and the Australian team began leading the charge to bring in the latest breakaway. Their work paid off, Sagan and his breakaway companions returning to the main field as they reached the feed zone in Saint-Joseph-de-Rivière, 35 kilometres from the sprint point.

With 119 kilometres to go the breakaway had finally settled into a stable group of five – Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Robert Kiserlovski (Astana), Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R La Mondiale), Cyril Gautier (Europcar) and David Millar (Garmin-Sharp). The group began working together to build up a lead that went right out to 11 minutes as the peloton approached the intermediate sprint, making it seem unlikely that the breakaway would be caught.

The peloton had other cares at this point, the intermediate sprint dominating their thoughts. Team Sky continued to lead the peloton right into the final kilometre as the sprint trains prepared to launch their sprinters. Matt Goss decided to leap out with a few hundred metres to go and managed to hold off the ‘Tour-minator’ Peter Sagan to take sixth place, gaining three more precious points over his green rival.

Despite the wind out the front of the stage making pace-making difficult, the breakaway was holding a 12 minute lead over the peloton at 40 kilometres to the finish. They managed to maintain most of their advantage for the remainder of the stage, the gap still 10 minutes as the leaders reached the five kilometre mark and prepared themselves for the inevitable attacks. It was Peraud who finally made the serious move, bolting towards the finish with just a couple of kilometres to go, Millar quickly on his wheel. The pair worked together tentatively to stay away from the trailing trio, each waiting for the other to start the sprint. In the end Peraud leapt out from behind the wheel of the Scotsman, but though Millar took a few seconds to respond his speed soon surpassed that of Peraud and the Frenchman was pipped on the line for first place. A few moments later Martinez appeared, leading Gautier and Kiserlovski in the sprint for third.

It was a further nine minutes before the peloton arrived, the sprint trains already doing their work again out the front. The green jersey of Sagan was once again prominent next to that of Matt Goss, sprinting for sixth and seventh place. Though Goss crossed the line first, Sagan protested that the Australian had deviated from his line, and the subsequent decision from the race judges ruled in his favour, relegating Goss to the back of the group and leaving Sagan to collect the points for sixth and keep his green. The fiery rematch will likely take place tomorrow, with a dead flat Stage 13 promising some fun for sprinters such as Sagan and Goss as well as Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel.