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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.
Race highlights from Velonews.tv
Erik Zabel has been on a bad streak of second place finishes for a long time. Today he finally broke out of the slump and showed flashes of classic Erik Zabel. The typicaly sprint finish stage saw THOR Hishovd finish second and keep his overall lead.
Zabel is obviously happy with the result:
“Today I am very happy because the whole team worked for me and it’s good to see the train is working better and better,” said Zabel after notching just his second win of the season. “I am very happy with this victory.”
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Eurosport.com: Vintage Zabel
Some in my local once thought that Ghent Wevelgem was some sort of Viking holiday. The response to the name was “ok let’s wear our viking helmets…”. Surpirsingly no Norwegian has ever won this race that takes the heartiness of a Viking to win. With only two climbs versus the 17 of Flanders, Ghent Wevelgem promised to be a sprinters duel. Team Milram looked all set to setup Petacchi for the win, but it was Pippo Pozzato that overturned the Milram cart. Pozzato launched an all out flying attack reminicent of his Milan San Remo flyer. Although the attack was launched from a farther distance, it staill had the same affect of denying Petacchi a victory. This time the winner was a very deserving THOR Husovd. Hushovd is gaining a reputation as a Petachhi killer as this is his second victory in a mano-a-mano sprint. THOR has more victories versus Petacchi that Boonen does this year.
As for Boonen, he was still feeling the effects of Sunday’s effort and decided to call today a training day. Better to save the strength for this Sunday when the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix call.
George Hincapie was in the mix for the final sprint finishing 5th just behind the gasping Pozzato. Can Hincapie convert his great form this year and finally win the coveted race?
The feast of San Giuseppe is traditional day that San Remo used to be raced on. That day to Americans is known as the day after St. Patrick’s Day. Usually San Remo was raced on the Saturday around St. Giuseppe. This year, San Remo is raced on that day, which would probably mean an Italian victory. Petacchi? Bettini? Astarloa (he is a wannabe Italian)?
Anyway, the anticipation is heating up as websites everywhere have to have some sort of word on the race. The anticipation this year is more intense due to the rivalry that is shaping up between Alessandro Petacchi and Tom Boonen. Since the World Championships in Madrid ended with a dejected Petacchi and a somewhat surpising winner in Boonen, the rivalry was on. There may have been times when the two competed against each other in the past, but this year the competition between the two sprinters seems to take on a new level. They are both looking to win Milano San Remo and there was a bit of trash talking from Boonen who said that Petacchi was not very impressive in Tirreno Adriatico. Oh, snap! Not too intense, but that is as much trash as we are going to get outside of Robbie McEwen and Gilberto Simoni.
So the stage is set, everyone is looking to the two sprinters to duke it out on the Via Roma. This is assuming they make it past the Cipressa in a bunch. It almost seems like a forgone conclusion that the result should contain a man named Boonen and another named Petacchi, either one of which will occupy the top spot. Why even race the race, just have a match sprint in the last 200 meters of the Via Roma and be done with it, save everybodies time while we are at it.
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Rabobank traded GC leaders today as Oscar Friere gave up the yellow and red jersey to the young all rounder Tomas Dekker. Cyclingnews has a bit of info on the young Dutchman.
Trained by Luigi Cecchini and considered one of the biggest future stars in world cycling, Dekker the younger had improved his climbing considerably over the winter, going as far to break Basso’s winter record time on the 936m high Monte Serra, so it would have been an interesting test regardless.
Fabian Cancellara won the stage which was a 20km Time Trial. Bad weather hampered the later riders who weren’t quite able to overhaul the TT specialist.
Bad weather is affecting Monday’s stage as the finish was changed to a flatter route with the finish in Torricella Sicura instead of the hilltop village of San Giacomo.
On Saturday, Alessandro Petacchi botched the sprint and was beaten by THOR Hushovd in a photo finish.
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