Jul 12, 2006
No Chances Taken
(pic from Yahoo!)
The mountains arrived in the Tour today, but for the major players not much changed when compared to the previous week’s flat stages. The Tour gently introduced a few mountains to shake up the peloton, making it easy for guys like Leipheimer and Mayo to catch back on after being shelled. After more than a week of pushing the big gears, the monster climbs are a shock to the system, so a stage like this is easy like Sunday morning for most of these guys.
The Col de Soudet and the Col de Marie Blanque were placed too early in stage to make any difference.
The result is a long breakaway with some potentially tough GC riders shooting up the ranks. My guess is that after spending most of the stage out ina break, Dessel and Mercado might just as easily shoot down the overall classification just as quickly as they shot up.
So nobody showed their cards today other than Michael Rasmussen putting in a small attack to scoop up a few points in the mountain competition. No surprise that he is on form, and he may be the catalyst to really shake thnings up tomorrow. Several climbers such as Rasmussen, Simoni and more can get a decent chance to shoot up the GC and hope for a podium spot since the wide open field of contenders does not seem contain very explosive climbers.
Tomorrow is a tough, epic Pyrennian stage, with the Col de Tourmalet, Col D’Aspin, Col de Peyresourde, Col du Portillion and the Puerto de Beret in the finale. All climbs are Cat 1, except for the Tourmalet which is HC. Expect Rasmussen to try a long break to make the Malliot au Poi his and either Phonak or T-Mobile to get shelled. My guess is that T-Mobile may not be as good in the mountains as they were in the first week.