Riccardo Ricco flash visions of Marco Pantani with the vicious atacks up the Col D’Aspin to claim his second stage win of the Tour. Ricco’s attack came up the final climb but before several kilometers of downhill. The main favorites in the select bunch that was left behind seemed to halt their attacks for the day once Ricco was off deciding to save their energy for the tough day to Hautcam tomorrow.
Team Columbia let the reigns of pace-making go to Euskatel Euskadi for most of the race and Caisse D’Epargne showed that they are the strongest team in the race by controlling the pace when things got dicey. Lampre also took up the chase at times, either to help control things for Cunego or limit the gains of another Italian Ricco. Vincenzo Nibali showed some strength with a follow up attack to Ricco that did not gain much time but put folks on notice to watch the young Sicilian.
JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images
Both of the two main favorites Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans had mediocre days. Valverde looked like he could be in trouble at times, but may have been taking things easy by resting for tomorrows tough stage. Valverde is still nursing inuries from a fall a few days ago. Cadel Evans hit the deck and paid a visit to the rolling doctor with some nasty looking bruises.
Riccardo Ricco put his stamp on the Tour with a nice win st Super Besse during stage 6. With the help of Leonardo Piepoli who joined an attack by Christian Vande Velde with 5km to go in the stage Ricco was able to take advantage of a counter attack.
Alejandro Valverde showed that he is the man to beat in the Tour with a strong second place and a very strong Caisse D’ Epargne team. Black jerseys were ever present and former Tour winnder Oscar Periero help push the pace of the group in the final kms. Valverde did not have enough speed in the end to get around the hard charging Ricco who is riding his first Tour de France.
Kim Kirchen gets the Yellow Jersey helped slightly by an unfortunate touch of wheels with Stefan Schumacher. Schumi hit the deck, but did not get any forgiveness for time since the stage finished on an uphill. Team Columbia gladly takes the Yellow Jersey from Schumi and Gerolsteiner. The Yellow today and a stage win yesterday by Mark Cavendish are giving the new sponsor some nice exposure making Columbia happy to sign on just in time for the Tour.
Garmin-Chipotle got some exposure today as Christian Vande Velde’s attack put him up to fourth place only 44 seconds behind Kim Kirchen with some more medium difficulty stages to come. This year’s Tour is very unpredictable so the final result is anyone’s guess.
Garmin’s TT kit reminds me of the awful Gan team kit of the early 90s featuring Greg Lemond and Chris Boardman. The faded blue with the argyle pattern bring back memories of the blue yellow splatter pattern of the Gan team where even Greg Lemond opted out and wore plain blue shorts.
The TT kits make the new Garmin kits with their white short faux pas forgivable.
Stefan Schumacher is the man who can separate the regular cycling fans from the “just following the Tour” fans. There was a huge shock in the news when Schumi took the Yellow Jersey. Who is this German coming from no where? A relative nobody gets to shine in Yellow. Well Stefan Schumacher has quite a few wins including an Amstel Gold win and several small stage races.
American fans of cycling will remember a particular moment when cycling Schumi (not F1 Schumi) robbed George Hincapie from a win at the ENENCO Tour.
In 2006 Schumacher, now riding for Team Gerolsteiner, won the Eneco Tour of Benelux by one second after colliding with his main rival George Hincapie in the closing metres of the final stage, when time bonuses were available for the leading finishers. Schumacher claimed he had collided first with a spectator and the race jury accepted his story.
Schumi also had a little problem with Amphetamines last year after the World Championships and was at risk of getting a long ban from the sport and at least losing his job at Gerolsteiner. Instead he received a six month ban that ended in March.
Schumacher won a TT before in the Tirreno Adriatico in 2007, and was also tipped by Cancellara in a pre TT interview as someone to lookout for in the race. So welcome non-rest of the year cycling fans, we missed you and say hello to Stefan Schumacher.
What was a novelty in stage 2 turned into a regular pattern for the road stages so far in this year’s Tour de France. Each day the breakaways consitent of all French riders usually three or four. Most of them contain Sylvain Chavanel or Thomas Voekler. They also must include a rider from Agritubel and maybe two and one rider from Cofidis. Throw in a mix of Boygues Telecom or Francaise de Jeux and you have a pretty descent breakaway rule for the 2008 Tour de France.
JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images
Tuning into the France 2 live stream I had to do a double take to make sure I was watching today’s stage 5 and not a previous stage since I saw a Cofidis rider in the breakaway. I for one welcome the resurgence of French riders into the competitive aspect of the Tour. I was tired of the years when only Bastille day was a chance for Frenchmen to shine. It seemed like Frenchmen turned into cycling’s equivalent of the Great White Hope. Now French riders are hogging up the camera time too much. If I see another Aritubel rider and a Kuota bike in the break I will have to spit up my baguette and brie.
With the homogeneous nationalities hogging up breakaways lets see if an equally odd and rare occurrence can happen. How about an all Luxembourg rider podium? Kim Kirchen and the Schleck brothers 1-2-3?
Will Frischkorn got into the winning break today in the Tour giving new sponsor Garmin some nice screen time and almost grabbing a win in the process. In the finale Frischkorn just was beaten by one of the smallest and most attacking Frenchmen in the peloton Samuel Dumoulin while number three on the stage Romain Feillu took the Yellow Jersey.
Frischkorn said he was a bit too eager in his first Tour de France breakaway.
When Dumoulin attacked with 2k to go I’d planned on hitting out just as I got to the back of the line … he beat me to it and it was game on. I jumped up to him, but made a real error jumping first when Feillu went by. I should have let Samuel do it first. Too eager. Then my second, and key, mistake, was pausing for a second with 350 to go. I had the legs to come around, and came close, but ran out of time. Aargh! I couldn’t be more excited with second, but wouldn’t be an athlete if I didn’t want to be one step higher.
Although the stage today was pancake flat, it was a great opportunity for a break to get some time and win since most of the favorites were concerned about the time trial stage the next day. Valverde is still the last favorite to leave the start house so he can keep track of his time and put in the right effort. Fabian Cancellara and David Milar are two men to look out for tomorrow.
The last two stages featured lots of Frenchmen especially riders from Agritubel. Yesterday featured a rare breakaway with four Frenchmen and no one else. Today’s stage win by Dumoulin and Yellow Romain Feillu punctuated the Frenchiness of this Tour. Many have said in the past that the French riders did not do well in the Tour because the peloton is run at two speeds. Meaning that the higher speed is that of dopers while the lower speed is that of non-doping Frenchmen. Well, it looks like the peloton may be down to one speed again as Frenchmen are having a heck of a time winning stages and featuring in breaks and watch out for Hinault. He wants to make sure the French enjoy their time in the spotlight.
Bernard Hinault is one guy you do’t want to cross. Just ask Greg Lemond. When unruly French protesters decided to desecrate the Tour podium, Hinault reacts swiftly and absolutely and takes down the protester before you can say La Vie Claire!
The Versus Tour coverage is great. All day repeats of live coverage with bonus coverage at night. The switch from Al Trautwig to Craig Hummer has been great. Hummer is very knowledgeable about cycling. He even surpasses Roll, Sherwan and Liggett. When Hummer picked Riccardo Ricco to win Stage 1 he was laughed at by the Versus crew who thought Ricco was a bad pick. Meanwhile Ricco came close to winning by placing fifth. Much closer than the other picks. Anyway, on Youtube you can see what the Tour de France coverage was like back when I first got a taste for cycling in 1988. The coverage was down to 1 hour highlight shows that were heavily edited and included John Tesh’s techno music. John Tesh was part of the CBS coverage producing these songs just for the Tour. Ugh. Yet somehow these would be good tunes for a spin class or something.
1988 L’Alpe D’Huez
Gert Jan Theunisse on L’Alpe D’Huez in 1989. Theunisse was a bad ass. Coverage was horrible still.
The four musketeers were giving French cycling renewed hope in today’s stage 2 in the Tour de France. You could not get a better mix to please the French public than Thomas Voekler, Sylvain Cavanal, David Le Lay and Christophe Moreau in a long breakaway. It’s been a long time since the Tour experienced such a sign of French virility at the Tour. Racing in the region of the last Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault you could get a sense that maybe just maybe the Tour is getting over the doping plague of the past few seasons. Then reality hots as you remember that Aleandro Valverde was riding for Kelme and had his name mixed up in the Operation Puerto, but only peripherally. Hopefully no one finds anything incriminating during or after the Tour just as Valverde’s Tour hopes start to get real.
Today’s stage almost up ended the sprinters. Pippo Pozzato won here years ago riding for Fassa Bortolo taking advantage of the climbs to the finish in a well timed break. This year it looked like he could repeat the feat as he bridged up to an attacking Fabian Cancellara. But they did not have the extra gas as the peloton roared up with Thor Hushovd taking first place and two Team Columbia’s in second and third.
