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With all of the stress both on and off the bike it seems like a great day to let a breakaway go for the win. Eight men moved clear of the peloton and gained a big lead that ended up with Daniele Bennati easily taking the win over the remaining three breakaway companions. Included in the break was Jens Voight who missed out on a win yet again.
The big news of the day was the lack of Yellow Jersey in the Peloton. With the sacking of Rasmussen for lies about his whereabouts during missed UCI drug tests, the Tour was missing its lead racer. Alberto Contador assumed the Yellow Jersey at the end of the stage, but he too is not squeaky clean as his name was mentioned in the Operation Puerto investigation. Contador is cleared at the moment, but his name is somewhat stained.
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“We are not looking for another leader, we are already strong” explains Bjarne Riis manager of Team CSC. After the departure of Ivan Basso due to the fallout of Operation Puerto Team CSC was left without a main man for the Grand Tours. Bjarne is not really looking for Ivan’s replacement.
Carlos Sastre had a very good year and I am convinced that Frank Schleck is the man of the future.
Bjarne Riis will be counting on a four pronged approach next year with Sastre, Schleck, Cancellara and Voight being leaders for various races throughout the year.
Frank Schleck had a very good 2006 winning the Amstel Gold Race and the L’Alpe D’Huez stage in the Tour de France. Fabian Cancellara won Paris Roubaix and the World Time Trial Championship. Carlos Sastre found himself in the unexpected role of leader for the Toru de France and finished fourth. He followed that up with another fourth in the Vuelta while riding all three Grand Tours. Jens Voight looked unstoppable for a stretch winning just about every race in site. So this core of riders are probably balanced enough to keep CSC near the front of the peloton.
(pic from Eurosport)
The Deustchland Tour or Tour of Germany or the D Tour looked to be a chance at redemption for the flayling performance in the Tour for Levi Leipheimer. After a victory in stage 5 Leipheimer looked to be paving the way for another win to honor his German sponsor Gerolsteiner. Jens Voigt had other ideas as he pulled out two consecutive stage wins to dominate the last half of the D Tour.
Voigt has been know to be a tireless worker, a breakaway junkie who was crushed that he lost theaward for most combative rider in the Tour de France to De La Fuentes. Voigt went into oxygen debt to claim a dramatic win in Stage 6 and then win the time-trial in stage 7. That makes three stage wins for the Jens “The Monster” Voigt in what he described as the last chance he could take overall victory in his home Tour. Maybe it was the fact that the course was not too monstrous since a few hard climbs were removed due to inclement weather in stage 5 allowing Voigt to stay within reach. The last twoo stage wins were uncharacteric of Voigt as he beat Leipheimer on a climbing stage and won a time-trial.
This win marks the second mini stage race win of the month with Fabian Cancellara taking the Tour of Denmark that was totally dominated by CSC in their home race. When Jens Voigt won stage 2 in the D Tour it marked a first three race in one day win by CSC. The team is showing that they can get by without Basso if they need to as the Giro champ will go to court at the end of the month to talk to the Judges about Operation Puerto. If Basso goes from Champ to Chump, then Carlos Sastre has not problem being the main man since he is ready to go back to work at the Vuelta. This marks the third Grand Tour of the year which is very uncommon in this age of concentrated road racing. Sastre could also benefit from the Landis situation and find himself on the podium on the Tour after moving up to second in the Vuelta 2005 after Heras’ expulsion. Overall a nice set of tresults for CSC.
