Jul 10, 2005
Stage 8 Analysis
Not since 2003 have we seen a big group of riders taking turns attacking Lance Armstrong. Lance was in an unusual position without the many teammates he has been accustomed to have accompany him up a mountain in the Tour de France. T-Mobile took turns with each of the triad of challengers taking a flyer off of the front of the elite group. Vinokourov looked linke he was doing climbing intervals as he would attack, slow to look at the damage, then attack again. His attacks helped to thin out the elite group of any Discovery Channel supporters.
In the past, Discovery/USPS would be able to take full control of any mountain stage. They were the blue train, similar to Mario Cipollini or Petacchi setting up for a sprint, USPS would roll along a high pace, dropping major contenders from the lead group. Each USPS rider would crank at the front and then drop off. At the end Lance would have either Jose Azevedo, or Roberto Heras or other climber with him at the end. This year, there was nobody after Paolo Salvodelli was dropped from the lead group. Salvodelli did great work chasing down a few of Vino’s flyers, but was burned up sooner than expected. Not having a team to keep a high pace made Lance vulnurable to countless attacks. They came mostly from T-Mobile and then Illes Baleares and one by Christophe Moreau.
Armstrong did not look god in the climb as he finally decided to stop chasing the attacks and focus on Ullrich. Probably a wise move, but Lance needs to keep an eye out on more than just one rider this year.
CSC had about 4 or 5 riders in the lead group, and now look to be breathing down the neck of Armstrong with Jens Voight in second and Bobby Julich not far behind. Ivan Basso is fifth.
The most danerous rider to Lance and Discovey is Vinokourov in third place at 1:02.
It will not be a fun dinner at te Discoery team headquarters. There has to be some sort of reevaluation of their tactics. Leave it up to Johan Bruyneel to come up with some interesting tactics. After all Paolo Salvodelli won the Giro without a very suportive Discovery team. Lance may not have the famour Blue train steaming up the mountains this year. The result is some exciting action in the mountains, and that was just a 4% climb!