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 17 - Gap => Pinerolo, Italy

It's called the Tour de France, and it tours France, but that doesn't mean that it tours all of France, or only France. The same as last year's prologue was in Holland, this year's Tour took a small detour - into Italy. The way out of Italy will include one of the most anticipated moments of this year's Tour - the Col du Galibier. But riding into Pinerolo will be only marginally less exciting than riding out of it.

It took a fair bit of work to get the day's breakaway going, always too big to safely get away, but 14 riders finally went off the front, including FDJ leader Sandy Casar, Sky sprinter Edvald Boasson Hagen and Quicksteps's French national champion Sylvain Chavanel. Building up their lead as they climbed, they were soon individually pursued by AG2R's Nicolas Roche, Tour stalwart Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Quick Step climber Kevin de Weert, who never came close to joining them.

Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) managed to break off the front and build up a 43-second lead on the descent, but was picked up again by the breakaway as they again began descending. Sylvain Chavanel then had his shot at solo glory 4.5 kilometres from the end of the final climb, but young Norwegian 'sprinter' Eddy Boasson Hagen, who is proving himself to be much more of an all-around GC guy this Tour, simply wasn't having any of it. Shutting Chavanel down promptly, he just kept right on going and soon found himself alone. The 24-year-old from Lillehammer paced himself into Pinerolo to eventually take a hard-won stage victory, which had me very happy after yesterday's heart-breaking defeat on the road to Gap. The Tour first-timer now has two TdF stage wins under his belt and he is already promising to be absolutely deadly in a few years' time.

In the meantime, back in peloton-land the kids were having fun. Alberto Contador (Saxobank-Sungard), on the back foot after his huge time losses from the first week, started playing some games on the way up the Col de Pramartino, and when he threw himself into the descent only Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) felt like joining him. Cadel Evans, as he later revealed, was trapped behind Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek), a notorious not-so-great descender, when Contador made his move and as such couldn't follow.

The descent was a tricky, technical one, and none would know this better than Saur-Sojasun's Jonathan Hivert. Taking every possible risk as he raced down the mountain in pursuit of Edvald Boasson Hagen, the Frenchman missed a corner and went flying off into the woods alongside the road. He was clearly up and riding shortly after because he did the same thing on another corner and rode neatly into someone's backyard through the fortunately open gate! He wasn't alone. A few minutes later the yellow of Thomas Voeckler appeared next to the parked car in the same backyard, although this time there was a spectator, possibly the homeowner himself, lending a hand to get the maillot jaune back on the road.

With Alberto and Samuel ahead of them and Voeckler losing time on his detour, the group of Cadel and the Schleck brothers, along with the other top names of the Tour, kept pounding their way down the other side of the mountain, trying not to lose too much time to the defending champion. The effort, led by Cadel, didn't seem to be going too well, as Contador and Sanchez were approaching Pinerolo without the other riders in sight. The Spanish pair, working together against the Luxembourg brothers and Aussie battler, were rounding the final corners to the finish line in the middle of town. Then just at the heart-breaking moment when the pair rounded the corner into the finishing straight and your two favourites were going to lose some time, the camera angle shifted to show the two racing forwards - with the other group rounding the corner behind them. Somehow Cadel had dragged everyone up to catch the Olympic and Tour de France champions shortly before they hit the finishing line. Cadel and Andy retained the same times compared to Contador, who must have been shattered that his near-successful breakaway was so neatly destroyed so near the end.