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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.
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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?
tuttobiciweb.com points out a gaff on the UCI website. They list a Laurent Jalabert born in 1968 as a rider on the Agritubel Cycling Team. The link can be seen on the Agritubel Team Roster Page. The rider that should be listed is Nicolas Jalabert born in 1973 as can be seen on the Agritubel Cycling Team Website. Maybe a Frenchman was daydreaming when they were filling out the roster and put in Laurent’s name instead. For Nicolas this must be tough living in the shadow of a famous big brother. This is much like a teacher calling you by your older sibling’s name.
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(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.
