What an eventful second half!
The big news was that Ricco' was tested positive for taking performance-enhancing drugs. More about that in a later post but, apart from feeling betrayed by a rider with such potential, I'm glad that the system is working and hope that such idiots are expelled from cycling altogether. The good news was that Mark Cavendish continued his impressive run by adding a further two stage wins on the flat stages that mark the transition to the Alps. He would have won a fifth stage into Digne-les-Bains but a climb inside the final 10km put him out of contention, as he dropped out of the back of the main group. Given his struggle on the foothills of the Alps and the following days' hard graft in the mountains, he sensibly dropped out of the Tour to join the rest of the British team training for the Olympics.
The next day saw the first of the big climbs (Stage 15 - see previous post for profile) and they did not disappoint. The CSC team kept the pace high throughout to thin the yellow jersey group to 10: Evans, Frank and Andy, Sastre, Menchov, Vande Velde, Valverde, Kohl, Samuel Sanchez and Kreuziger. Almost everyone from this group made an attempt to attack, with Menchov looking the most promising until he crashed on the slippery road 8km from the finish (the rest of the group waited for him to rejoin before attacking again). Just 3kms from the summit finish, Sastre and Kohl attacked, followed by revitalised Valverde. Evans struggled to keep with the attacks and Schleck was able to gain the vital few seconds needed to gain the maillot jaune.
After the second rest day, Stage 16 to Jausiers was a rather contained affair, with most of the leaders keeping their powder dry for the crunch stage to L'Alpe d'Huez. Menchov, however, lost a chunk of time on the final descent, reflecting his habit of throwing away time needlessly. The next day must have been looming in the riders' minds ever since the route had been unveiled last October - a decisive stage if ever there was one, especially if a challenger is a mountain goat.
All was again relatively quiet until the Col de la Croix de Fer, when Fabian Cancellara took over from Stuart O’Grady (both CSC) to set a high tempo at the base of the climb. Anyone who doubts the value of teamwork should take a look at these two riders, along with Jens Voigt, who decimated the field through the Pyrenees and Alps, despite them not being very good climbers! By the time they reached the summit, the yellow jersey group was down to 18 riders, with CSC having six of them. At the start of the final ascent to L'Alpe d'Huez, Cancellara peeled off and Carlos Sastre bolted ahead, never to be seen again until he crossed the line - an all-out effort designed to gain as much time as possible over Cadel Evans. The time gap back to Evans increased with every 100m - at first he seemed to be controlling the gap and sticking close to Schleck but he was clearly struggling to maintain a high enough tempo up the steep slopes of the Alpe. Evans could not hope to regain any time lost to Sastre and so focused on minimising his losses, in the knowledge that he could make up that time in the final time trial.
Carlos Sastre was expected to lose his advantage to Cadel Evans during the final time trial - his lead of 1’34” after 19 stages seemed to all commentators to not be enough to retain the jersey in Paris. However, those of us who have experienced many Tours thought differently. I have witnessed incredible feats of endurance by those wearing the yellow jersey, notably Thomas Voekler's retention of the jersey for 10 days, despite Lance Armstrong's best efforts, and rendering himself nearly comatose in the process!
Cadel Evans needed to gain almost two seconds every kilometre and it was clear from the start that he was struggling to gain a quarter of that amount. Fabian Cancellara (time trial world champion) said that, in the final time trial, it was not the best time-triallist that wins but the one who retains enough strength after the mountains to perform at his best. So, despite Evans being a far better time-triallist than Sastre, it looked as if the efforts in the Alps had taken their toll on him. And not only did Evans fail to perform at his best, Sastre was riding the time trial of his life - over 53kms he lost only 29 seconds to Evans, finishing in 12th place... not bad for a climber! Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Frank Schleck, whose performance was sub-par and subsequently dropped out of the top five overall. Look out for his brother, Andy, though - not only is he an excellent climber but he also did relatively well in the time trial... and he still has 10 years of cycling ahead of him.
Well, that's it for another Tour - see you next year in Monaco!
3 comments:
I have an outlandish theory about Frank Schleck's performance in the TT. Forgive my using your excellent blog for spouting purposes, nobody in my life knows what I'm talking about.
Could it have been that Schleck was required by Riis to take it easy during the time trial so that he could pace Sastre through the final few kilometres if the time difference had been as close as everyone expected it to be?
Obviously there could have been no use of the slipstream but if one can see a rider in front, he can be used as a target. With both riders in contact with the team car this would not have been too difficult to manage.
In the event, it would have proved unnecessary, but it would explain the shocking performance by Frank.
I know, I know. I'm a horrible cynic.
A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist - nothing bad about it, in itself (IMHO)
In this day of riders wired-up with radio and in constant contact with their directeur sportifs, I don't think Sastre would need to have relied on Schleck to do the pacing - Riis had already said in an interview that he'd be giving Sastre km-by-km timechecks, reflected in the way the time gap developed.
At first, Evans was on target to open up the 3-seconds per km gap. Soon, though, Sastre upped the pace to keep this in check. By the halfway stage, Evans had gone all out but knew he couldn't win so Sastre was able to keep the gap constant without pushing so hard and risk blowing up at the end.
Who knows? Had Evans gone out AFTER Sastre, i.e., with the carrot ahead of him, would he have regained enough time? All things being equal, psychology determines winners from losers....
PS - I'm still crossing my fingers that we won't hear another scandal coming out of the Tour. If any of the CSC team, especially Sastre, were found to be tainted, it would turn many people off cycling altogether.
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