Fassa without Petacchi
Last year Fassa Bortolo had a very odd Tour. Allesandro Petacchi won 4 of the first 6 stages, then abandoned with the green jersey on his back. By the time they reached Paris, more than half the team had quit and Ivan Basso was their lone merit, finishing 11th. Now Basso rides for CSC and Petacchi quit without even making a splash, but Fassa is still having a good Tour. Today Aitor Gonzalez won stage 14, giving his team it's third win of the 2004 Tour. True, the main pack wanted to rest today, so they let the breakaway go. But Gonzalez was stronger and smarter than the rest of the breakaway. A well-timed attack gave him a comfortable margin of victory, and that's that.
The breakaway was huge and finished 14 minutes ahead of the peloton. CSC made their first mistake of the Tour in not putting a man in the breakaway. Telekom did, so they have taken a 5 minute lead in the team competition.
The breakaway scooped up most of the sprinting points, but McEwen led the peloton across the finish. That earned him an extra point over Hushovd and 4 points over Zabel. Not big, but if it had been the other way around, we'd be calling it significant.
Euskaltel--these guys can't avoid bad things, can they? They were the only team with two men in the breakaway, but they finished last in the breakaway. The horrible races of Mayo and Zubeldia have really gutted this team, but I give their other riders an E for effort. In past years they didn't even care to send men into a breakaway, but they've done it a couple times in the last week. But they have two problems: they have no talent on the flat roads, and to call their tactics horrible would be sugar-coating it. Inigo Landaluze was involved in the breakaway that was nabbed 50 meters from the finish a few stages ago, and he was also in the one today, but he and Egoi Martinez didn't do a thing to use their advantage in numbers. Someday they may get it right. Maybe.
Last year Fassa Bortolo had a very odd Tour. Allesandro Petacchi won 4 of the first 6 stages, then abandoned with the green jersey on his back. By the time they reached Paris, more than half the team had quit and Ivan Basso was their lone merit, finishing 11th. Now Basso rides for CSC and Petacchi quit without even making a splash, but Fassa is still having a good Tour. Today Aitor Gonzalez won stage 14, giving his team it's third win of the 2004 Tour. True, the main pack wanted to rest today, so they let the breakaway go. But Gonzalez was stronger and smarter than the rest of the breakaway. A well-timed attack gave him a comfortable margin of victory, and that's that.
The breakaway was huge and finished 14 minutes ahead of the peloton. CSC made their first mistake of the Tour in not putting a man in the breakaway. Telekom did, so they have taken a 5 minute lead in the team competition.
The breakaway scooped up most of the sprinting points, but McEwen led the peloton across the finish. That earned him an extra point over Hushovd and 4 points over Zabel. Not big, but if it had been the other way around, we'd be calling it significant.
Euskaltel--these guys can't avoid bad things, can they? They were the only team with two men in the breakaway, but they finished last in the breakaway. The horrible races of Mayo and Zubeldia have really gutted this team, but I give their other riders an E for effort. In past years they didn't even care to send men into a breakaway, but they've done it a couple times in the last week. But they have two problems: they have no talent on the flat roads, and to call their tactics horrible would be sugar-coating it. Inigo Landaluze was involved in the breakaway that was nabbed 50 meters from the finish a few stages ago, and he was also in the one today, but he and Egoi Martinez didn't do a thing to use their advantage in numbers. Someday they may get it right. Maybe.
posted by uberschuck at 1:31 PM
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