STAGE THREE
We have a saying here at Tour de France headquarters: you can’t win the Tour in the first week, but you can lose it. While the sprinters compete for all of those precious points in the green jersey classification, the goal of the top GC contenders is to stay out of danger. The story right now is not that Lance is in fifth, but that he has lost no time to any contenders.
Enter a massive crash today, splitting the peleton in half.
Mayo just lost the Tour. He’s not the most gifted time trialist, and his strategy was obvious to everyone, build a lead over Armstrong big enough that he couldn’t eat it all up in the last time trial. Mayo essentially needed to beat Lance by about three minutes over the course of the race. Now, make it seven. While Mayo had a shot of beating Lance by three minutes on the course, there’s no way in hell he’ll beat him by seven. I hate to say this so early, but it’s over for Mayo.
Another guy who just saw his Tour hopes flushed down the toilet is Thor Hushovd. Apparently, I jinxed him by saying he was having such a great Tour. Well, getting caught in that crash puts him 23 points behind McEwen, the kind of gap that takes an entire race to close. Hushovd has to beat McEwen in almost every sprint from now until Paris to have a real chance of winning. He should pick up Kirsipuu and Hondo in short order, but Nazon has now positioned himself as the closest contender to McEwen.
I’m not going to give you everybody that ended up losing time to the leaders, but let’s hit the highlights, other than Hushovd and Mayo:
Mario Cipollini He’s having a lousy Tour so far, and we never thought he’d be a threat, but it’s still a bummer to see a former great go down.
Denis Menchov Banesto’s captain is now down by almost five minutes.
Jose Ivan Gutierrez He wasn’t going to win, but Banesto lost a rider currently in the top ten.
Santiago Botero This actually helps Ullrich, as there is even less temptation for the team to ride for someone else.
Christophe Moreau Every year, the French think he has a chance of winning the yellow and every year, he lets them down.
Stuart O’Grady and Baden Cooke Two Aussie sprinters go down. They have no shot of winning the green now.
Michael Rogers An even bigger loss for the land Down Under. He could still win the white jersey, but this is a huge setback.
David Moncoutie I’ve been charting him as Cofidis’ best GC hopes. Farazijn is now the highest placed Cofidis rider, in 85th over one minute out.
Sandy Casar Not a real contender, but he was FDJ’s best hope. Do they now ride for Mengin?
Erik Dekker Wherever there is lost time, there is Erik Dekker.
In all, 93 riders of 184 finished at least 3:53 back. This was a huge day on the Tour. So tonight on SportsCenter, they’ll mention the winner of stage (Nazon), who’s now in yellow (McEwen), and where Lance is in the GC (5th). They will not grasp this was as big of a day as we’ll see in the first week.
We have a saying here at Tour de France headquarters: you can’t win the Tour in the first week, but you can lose it. While the sprinters compete for all of those precious points in the green jersey classification, the goal of the top GC contenders is to stay out of danger. The story right now is not that Lance is in fifth, but that he has lost no time to any contenders.
Enter a massive crash today, splitting the peleton in half.
Mayo just lost the Tour. He’s not the most gifted time trialist, and his strategy was obvious to everyone, build a lead over Armstrong big enough that he couldn’t eat it all up in the last time trial. Mayo essentially needed to beat Lance by about three minutes over the course of the race. Now, make it seven. While Mayo had a shot of beating Lance by three minutes on the course, there’s no way in hell he’ll beat him by seven. I hate to say this so early, but it’s over for Mayo.
Another guy who just saw his Tour hopes flushed down the toilet is Thor Hushovd. Apparently, I jinxed him by saying he was having such a great Tour. Well, getting caught in that crash puts him 23 points behind McEwen, the kind of gap that takes an entire race to close. Hushovd has to beat McEwen in almost every sprint from now until Paris to have a real chance of winning. He should pick up Kirsipuu and Hondo in short order, but Nazon has now positioned himself as the closest contender to McEwen.
I’m not going to give you everybody that ended up losing time to the leaders, but let’s hit the highlights, other than Hushovd and Mayo:
Mario Cipollini He’s having a lousy Tour so far, and we never thought he’d be a threat, but it’s still a bummer to see a former great go down.
Denis Menchov Banesto’s captain is now down by almost five minutes.
Jose Ivan Gutierrez He wasn’t going to win, but Banesto lost a rider currently in the top ten.
Santiago Botero This actually helps Ullrich, as there is even less temptation for the team to ride for someone else.
Christophe Moreau Every year, the French think he has a chance of winning the yellow and every year, he lets them down.
Stuart O’Grady and Baden Cooke Two Aussie sprinters go down. They have no shot of winning the green now.
Michael Rogers An even bigger loss for the land Down Under. He could still win the white jersey, but this is a huge setback.
David Moncoutie I’ve been charting him as Cofidis’ best GC hopes. Farazijn is now the highest placed Cofidis rider, in 85th over one minute out.
Sandy Casar Not a real contender, but he was FDJ’s best hope. Do they now ride for Mengin?
Erik Dekker Wherever there is lost time, there is Erik Dekker.
In all, 93 riders of 184 finished at least 3:53 back. This was a huge day on the Tour. So tonight on SportsCenter, they’ll mention the winner of stage (Nazon), who’s now in yellow (McEwen), and where Lance is in the GC (5th). They will not grasp this was as big of a day as we’ll see in the first week.
posted by Poseur at 3:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home