Stage 6 - Dinan => Lisieux

Finally, a stage of the Tour that actually went to plan!  No serious crashes, nothing dramatic and difficult in the GC, nobody penalised or disqualified - just another routine day in the biggest and most un-routine bike race in the world.

Comme d'habitude, the most exciting part of the day was the breakaway.  Five riders, including familiar names from Vacansoleil Johnney Hoogerland and Lieuwe Westra, built themselves up a 10-minute lead over the main peloton.  After yesterday's rider massacre on the roads, I think most of the riders, especially the top contenders for the general classification like Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans, were thinking of nothing more than staying safe and getting through the stage, and were happy to let the breakaway have some fun.  The scenery passing from Brittany to Normandy was beautiful too, and the number of chateaux the Tour passed was too high to recall.

 

(I just couldn't resist putting a picture in.  This is the breakaway of Adriano Malori, Leonardo Duque, Lieuwe Westra, Johnny Hoogerland and Anthony Roux passing Mont-Saint-Michel,  an island monastery off the coast of France.)

The weather put something of a constant dampener on the proceedings - literally.  Despite sunny skies at the finish line, the skies above the race were usually grey and exuding copious amounts of water, to the discomfort and danger of the riders.  Mindful of yesterday, everyone was super-careful of their surroundings, but that didn't stop Levi Leipheimer (Radioshack) skidding on a white line-marking and publicly faceplanting.  Only his dignity wounded, he was back on the bike with a potentially damaging time deficit to make up on the peloton.  He eventually finished 1:04 after the winners, possibly putting him out of GC contention and making him the second of Team Radioshack's four GC hopes to go down that path (team leader Janez Brajkovic withdrew from the race yesterday after suffering a broken collarbone in a fall).

The breakaway took the points for the King of the Mountains jersey, Lieuwe Westra taking the first one and Anthony Roux and Johnny Hoogerland each taking three between the two Category 3 climbs, which was enough to put Hoogerland in the lead for the classification and take the jersey from Cadel Evans.  With the peloton putting on the pressure soon afterwards and eating into their lead, Lieuwe Westra and Lampre youngster Adriano Malori decided to go it alone and left the rest of the breakaway behind, where they were soon swallowed up by the peloton.  Westra and Malori held a tenuous lead of only a minute or two, but they held it right up to the 20-kilometre mark, when Malori went again, leaving a resigned Westra for the peloton to find.  Though with a lead of no more than a minute, Malori managed to hold off the hungering wolves until just inside the 3-k mark, earning himself the red number of the stage's most aggressive rider for his stubbornness.

And hungering wolves they were, for the peloton could feel a bunch sprint for their fastest riders coming on.  HTC seemed to finally get their lead-out train working properly, but Mark Cavendish clearly didn't feel he had the legs today, for it was Australia's Gossie (Matthew Goss) who went for the sprint instead, coming a valiant second.  Team Sky's black jerseys were also prominent up the front, and with good reason, for it was their sprinter Edvald Boasson Hagen, just 24 years of age, who took line honours for the first time.  In a fairytale ending, his family were in Lisieux to celebrate the young Norwegian's first stage victory in the Tour de France.  Man of the week Phillipe Gilbert and huge fellow Norwegian Thor Hushovd followed Boasson Hagen across the line, meaning the God of Thunder gets to keep his yellow jersey for another day, as does Phillipe Gilbert with his green.

**In a sad but foreseen endnote, Euskaltel-Euskadi rider Ivan Velasco has indeed withdrawn from this year's Tour, after breaking his collarbone in a nasty fall in Brittany yesterday.  Velasco is the fourth rider to withdraw from the 2011 Tour.

Photograph courtesty of Cycling News at www.cyclingnews.com

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 3 - Olonne-sur-Mer => Redon

It feels like we're finally settling into the Tour de France rhythm - today's stage was a fairly tame one without any major disruptions, insofar as the TdF ever has no disruptions.

Stage 3 was pretty flat, the only excitement being the intermediate sprint and a category 4 climb on top of a lovely bridge over the Loire (which rather resembled Melbourne's Westgate Bridge, by the way).  As expected a breakaway went off the front and happily sat out there for most of the day.  Some of the five started sprinting for the green jersey points, which were taken out by Frenchman Mickael Delage (FDJ), before settling back into their pace ahead of the pack.  The peloton also chased for the remainder of the sprint points, Cavendish and Hushovd taking out the next highest points, but both having those points stripped after a headbutting incident similar to that of Mark Renshaw and Julian Dean in last year's tour.

The next bit of fun was the climb for KOM points, 40 kilometres on from the sprint.  The wind on top of the bridge wasn't an obstacle for the breakaway, ever so slowly being drawn back in by the main field, but the peloton found themselves abruptly cut in half by the crosswinds as they made their way to the top of the bridge.  Consternation reigned for the next 10 kilometres or so, as the peloton regrouped, riders dropped off the back made contact again, and the breakaway tried to continue its renegade act in the face of an ever-approaching peloton.

Movistar's Jose Ivan Gutierrez, seeing the peloton 30 seconds behind, clearly decided he didn't want to be caught and went on another speed crusade, taking Delage with him for company.  Despite the wishes of the peloton the two managed to stay off the front until 10 k's to go, and allowed themselves to be caught gracefully before disappearing behind the prominent lead-out trains of Garmin-Cervelo and Lampre.  The sprinters teams were planning to claim this one, but something definitely went awry for HTC, and despite having all nine riders preparing the train, Cavendish fell off the back of the train before Renshaw could launch him and finished 5th instead.  Lampre's train also vanished and Alessandro Petacchi attached himself to Hushovd's wheel at the end of Garmin's train instead, but wasn't able to get himself up there in the end.

As it was, Hushovd instead succeeded in helping American teammate Tyler Farrar bolt ahead to take his first-ever stage victory, ahead of Vacansoleil's Romain Feillu and Movistar's Jose Joaquin Rojas.  I almost teared up when Farrar lifted his hands off his bike as he crossed the line to form a 'W' - dedicating his win to his best mate and training partner Wouter Weylandt from Team Leopard Trek, who died in the Giro d'Italia a few months ago.  I'll bet Farrar was wishing Wouter could have been there to see him finally make it, and on American Independence Day as well.  I'm sure Wouter was watching anyway.

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!