Saturday, July 17, 2004

Stage 13 : Deja vu all over again.  
 
USPS set a pace that blew the peloton apart. Jose Azevedo finished off all of them except Ivan Basso and Lance Armstrong. Those two rode to the finish line together, putting plenty of time on their competitors. Thomas Voeckler dug deep to finish close enough to keep his yellow jersey. Sound familiar? It was stage 12, but longer, in a different city, and this time Basso let Armstrong take the stage win.  
 
Even though it seemed like a copy of stage 12 (or even the finish at Plateau de Beille in 2002), there are plenty of stories...   
  
 

1) Lance Armstrong & Ivan Basso. This is turning into a two man-race, as they are clearly much stronger than anyone else. This friendly stuff about giving each other stage wins has got to stop now. Each man should consider the other a rival. Basso has got to attack Armstrong, or else Armstrong will either bury him in the time trial, or wait until the last mountain to attack him.  
 
2) At most, it's a five man race. Voeckler has lost huge time in the mountains. Most men would have cracked big time. After watching him be Rocky on a bike, I'm not counting him out until he loses the yellow jersey (Tuesday?).  Andreas Kloden and Francisco Mancebo are both around 3 minutes behind Lance Armstrong. Kloden is now 4 minutes ahead of Ullrich after beating him on consecutive climbing stages. Is Telekom going to let him drive the bus now? Mancebo is riding his best Tour ever, and that's saying a lot. Aside from the year he won a white jersey, he's always been an unsung hero. Hopefully the Tour media will start giving him his due now.  
 
No one else is within 6 minutes of the lead.  
 
3) Tyler Hamilton abandoned, so half of our writers are now on suicide watch. A year ago he went 3 weeks with a broken collar bone. Today he quit because his back hurt. I don't get it. If he had been just 1 minute off the lead do you think he would have quit?  
 
4) Iban Mayo. Did he have an awful day or what? Mayo finished almost 40 minutes behind Armstrong. He finished in the group of Thor Hushovd! Just a total wipe out. But notice that he finished. Mayo won my respect a year ago when he won Alpe d'Huez. Today he won more respect.  
 
Every time I run a marathon I compare two groups of people...The really good athletes who run in 3 hours, and the ones who finish in 5 hours (conveniently, I usually finish exactly in the middle). Though the folks at 3 hours are better athletes and better prepared, I have a special  respect for the people finishing at 5 hours because they suffer more. It's very lonely and painful to bring up the rear when you're in physical and mental agony. While Hamilton was getting a rub down at the hotel room, Mayo was torturing himself toward the finish line. At one point he was off his bike and on his way to the team car. His teammates and manager literally pushed him back on to his machine and told him he couldn't quit. You're a hard man, Iban, and you've got a lot of guts. Your hometown newspaper is going to run a story about how you crashed and burned. Clip it & save it. You'll enjoy reading it again when you're back on form and winning races again.   
 
5) Richard Virenque is being made to earn his polka dot jersey. Previously he won it with one day of work. This year he's got to earn points almost every day because of the rule changes. He's built up a big lead, and it has been several other men splitting the points, so he'll probably win this one again.  
 
6) Roberto Heras is now 27 minutes out. What happened? He's been in some crashes, so maybe he's hurting.  For whatever reason, he's having a totally crummy Tour. It reminds me of Gilberto Simoni in 2003.  Speaking of Simoni, he turned in another good ride. He's not going to win this thing, but he's got a great shot at the top 10. In fact, we might have 3 Italians in the top 10. Huh?  
 
Back to Heras...He left USPS to be "the man" at Liberty Seguros. USPS replaced him with Jose Azevedo, now 7th, 6:43 behind Voeckler. Another good trade for Postal?  
 
7) A lot of racing remains. The final week has many more mountains and two time trials. There is still plenty of time to change the shape of the race. Often the men who are strong in the first set of mountains are weak in the second, and vice versa, so there is hope for the men who have lost time (a little, not a lot) in the Pyrenees.  And by no means has Armstrong won it. He's got just more than a minute to Basso, and everyone, even Armstrong, is susceptible to crashes and illness.
 
But tomorrow we'll be on a somewhat flat stage. We'll get to see if McEwen, Zabel, Hushovd, and O'Grady have any strength in their legs after the mountains.



Friday, July 16, 2004

Basso comes of age.
 
In 2002 Ivan Basso caught our eyes by winning the white jersey. I remember joking at the time that he must be young and naïve—Italian riders just don’t take the Tour seriously. In 2003 he had another very good ride. In our TdF 2004 preview I said that being on CSC would probably help him, but I considered him an outside shot at best, not among the best of the contenders. Why? Basso completed his good finishes in the last two years not by being spectacular, but by being consistently among the last men dropped in the mountains. He had never won a stage; he had never even put in a good attack.
 
Well, Basso has come of age.  It wasn’t a vicious attack, but he did turn up the pace to spring off the lead group.  And yeah, Lance eased up and didn’t bother challenging Basso for the stage, but Basso did stay with him as he pounded the pedals in the last kilometer to put time on Ullrich and Hamilton, and you should never knock the significance of a win at the top of a category 1 climb.
 
Not only did he ride a strong race, but he has a great understanding of the Tour as well (it helps having Bjarne Riis as a mentor).  He’s definitely keen on getting a high finish, but in his post-race interviews he said he knows Lance is the strongest man, and that Ullrich and Hamilton still aren’t finished. And he’s right. They each had a bad day, but there is a long way to go. They’ll be back. A lot will change in the last week.
 
Basso is only 26, so his best days are still ahead. The young guys have been having a great Tour so far, no one better than Thomas Voeckler. Voeckler has been so resilient with his yellow jersey. The writing is on the wall—we know he’s going to crack—but he’s obviously strong and tenacious. If he loses his yellow and white jerseys, I wouldn’t be surprised if he abandons because of the torture he has put himself through. But the thing is, 3-5 years from now we may very well see Voeckler and Basso being the men fighting for the Tour once Armstrong and Ullrich are gone. Perhaps Michele Scarpioni will be in the mix too—he rode very well today.
 
OK, Gilberto Simoni, Francisco Mancebo, Levi Leipheimer, and Andreas Kloden all did well in stage 12. Mayo had a good time too, but he wasn’t the attacker we expected to see. Zubledia and Botero fell off the map.  Surprisingly, Manuel Beltran popped off the pace early, and Jose Ruberia seemed to make an early exit too. I wonder if USPS decided to have these guys check out early to save their legs for tomorrow. I tend to think so, because it’s a bit odd for a climber like Beltran to ride home behind George Hincapie and Floyd Landis. Well, Azevedo certainly didn’t relax. He was awesome on the final climb. 
 


STAGE TWELVE


We really can't stress enough just how awesome Lance is. US Postal spent the entire final climb slowly quickening the place, dropping rider after rider until it was just nine riders. And with three kilometers to go, Lance attacked the few who survived the pace. Only Basso and Sastre could respond, and Sastre only for about 1k. Then, just to demonstrate his supreme confidence, he let Ivan Basso wi the stage without a fight. Hey, way to keep up, and as a reward, I'll let you win. It's days like this that make you wonder why the other riders even bother to show up.

Watching the Posties at work is one of the most amazing things in sports. The common complaint you hear from non-cycling fans is that they do not understand the team system. I don't know how anyone could watch US Postal ride a stage like this and ever wonder the benefit of a team ever again. As per the norm, the Posties dictated the pace of the peleton all day long. Then with 10km to go, they just put on a clinic. First Landis, then Hincapie, then Rubiera, and finally Azevedo led the peleton, doing the hard work for Lance, guiding him to the front of the stage. And then Lance delivered the knockout blow. Everyone knew it was coming and they couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Some big names felt the hammer. Of the three major contenders of Mayo, Hamilton, and Ullrich; only Mayo survived to the final group of nine. The carnage is huge: Mayo lost just over one minute, Leipheimer lost just short of two, Ullrich lost exactly two and a half, Heras lost three, and Hamilton lost three and a half minutes. On the first major day of climbing, Lance destroyed his competition.


So that makes Thomas Voeckler's performance all the more amazing. Voeckler finished 41st at 3:59 out, but he stuck with the big boys longer than anyone expected. Actually, Voeckler got dropped about the same time Ullrich did, he just cracked a little bit harder. And he didn't have the help of teammates, as Brioches isn't exactly full of stud climbers. But he gamely defended his lead and will get to wear the jersey for another day. That is very impressive and he deserves another day in the spotlight. He even made strides in the white jersey classification, beating Casar by one minute and a half.


Outside of a crash, I don't say any way Armstrong doesn't win this thing. He just looks ten times stronger than everybody else. As Jason said, today we would find out who is strong. The answer, as always, is Lance Armstrong. 
 


Thursday, July 15, 2004

STAGE ELEVEN

What a boring stage. Why even bother with this one? Aside from David Moncoutie, did this stage impact anybody? There was a sprint finish within the peleton which got Hushovd a few points, but nothing significant. Virenque picked up some ore cheap points on the early climbs. Voeckler saw absolutely no change in his lead and will wear yellow for another day.

OK, Magnus Backstedt dropped out the race and Matthias Kessler didn't even start the stage. But Kessler's out due to a high speed introduction to a fence post in Stage Ten. It was a pretty spectacular crash, but he just couldn't continue today, and I can't blame him. If it hurt half as bad as it looked, I'm stunned he even got back on his bike and finished the stage.

A three-man, 60 km breakaway dominated the storyline today. But since non of the riders were close to the lead, no one really bothered to chase them down. And the finish between the breakaway wasn't even exciting, as Moncoutie dropped his fellow attackers almost 10 km from the finish line. Everyone sort of just rode out the day. Aside from a small hanful, nobody lost any time.

Oh, am I drooling over those twin climbs of Stage Twelve. Finally, the Tour gets going! No offense, but Erik Zabel is in 7th overall, and that's just wrong. A sprinter shouldn't be in 7th midway through the Tour.
STAGE TEN

I loathe Richard Virenque. We spend lots of time here trying to give props to some of the more anonymous riders in the Tour, as it's a greuling event and if you manage to even finish, you deserve some measure of respect. But I'll make an exception for Virenque.

No rider symbolizes the drug problems in the sport better than Virenque. He and his Festina team were center stage when the doping controversy reached its peak. And while lots of guys have been found to be using drugs, most have shown some measure of remorse. But not Virenque. If anything, the French, desperate for anybody French to win anything, have embraced one of the sport's biggest scumbags.

It's not just the drugs or his demeanor (see Jason's post), it's his cowardly tactics. This is a guy who wins the polka dots by attacking on the weaker mountain stages that the real climbers conserve energy on. He wins King of the Mountains despite getting his ass kicked on Ventoux. It just pisses me off. I cannot stand him at all.

But I will say it is nice that on Bastille Day, A French rider wears yellow and another French rider wins the stage. It's just a shame one of those riders had to be Virenque.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Stage 10 review

Yeah, Virenque won the stage. He picked up 68 points today, giving him 73 now. He wears the polka dot jersey and has a lead of 16 over Axel Merckx. In the past Virenque has essentially won the jersey on one day of work. This year the rules have been changed a bit, so he still has to pick up a lot of points to win this thing.

There was a spat between Virenque and Merckx during their long breakaway. Merckx never challenged Virenque for the points and later revealed why. Merckx claims they made a deal--Virenque could take the climbs, and Merckx would get the stage win. "When he accelerated I thought he would wait for me because we had an agreement. But no... he went off. He didn't respect his word. If I had have known he was going to do that I would have taken points from him on the climbs."

Well, boo-hoo! Shut your whining, Axel. First of all, what makes you think you're a good enough rider to ride in the mountains with Virenque for 200 km? Secondly, Merckx not only lost his 10 minute lead on the peloton, but he was caught and dropped by them. He finished 71st on the stage. Did you make a deal with all 70 riders so that you could win the stage? Gimme a break. You don't come in 71st and complain about being robbed of the stage win. If Virenque had followed your wheel, you still wouldn't have won, so shove it.

Virenque was determined not to allow Merckx to be the only one to say something stupid. "It was not me who attacked, he was dropped." Look, pal, I saw it. You turned up the pace. Just admit it. Virenque must have gone to the "Bernard Hinault school of working together in the mountains."


OK, Erik Zabel, you were amazing. This guy is old enough that he should have retired 2 years ago. He's a sprinter, not a climber, yet he hung around with the chase group of the yellow jersey contenders. He was in the peloton when it finished, but the other green jersey contenders were all 15 minutes behind in the Autobus. So, Zabel picked up 15 points at the finish line, pulling himself into second place, 10 points behind McEwen. A big coup by Zabel. The only problem was that Andreas Kloden, Zabel's lead out man, didn't pull back and let Zabel pass him. Kloden was second on the stage and cost Zabel another 2 points. Doh!

Great job by Brioches to protect Thomas Voeckler. For a while the yellow jersey was in danger of popping off the back of the peloton during the big climb, but he managed to hang on. But in this stage the big boys weren't going hard. On Friday they will.
A look ahead

If you’ve been checking out the web pages of cycling mags (and do you really need to?) you may have read some stuff about how the contenders will be itching for a big showdown in the climbs of stage 10. Not quite. Stage 10 should be an appetizer, but the big stuff is still a few days away.

There are 9 categorized climbs on stage 10, but 6 of them are either category 3 or 4. There is one category 1 climb, and it’s 50 km from the finish. Wednesday isn’t the day that the contenders will get down & dirty, it’s the day that Richard Vinrenque and whoever else wants the King of the Mountains jersey will go out on a very long breakaway to score points.

Stage 10--Virenque's day



When the contenders get to the category 1 climb, Mayo may attack simply because it’s his visceral reaction to an incline, but the best contenders—Armstrong, Ullrich, Hamilton, won’t be attacking. They know that the remaining 50 km are just too long to hold off the stud riders. Now, we may discover a poseur among the contenders if anyone is out of form—like if Leipheimer or Mancebo or Simoni is out of shape, they might pop off the back. Most of the elite climbers should ride this one together, though we’ll see them gain time on the 5 upstarts who bolted to the top of the standings after stage 5.


That’s Wednesday. The big stages are later in the week. Just compare the profiles. On stage 10 we’ll find out if anyone is weak. In stages 12 and 13 we’ll find out who’s strong. The gloves will be off when the Col d’Aspin is in sight.

Stage 12--Friday. This is when it really starts.


Stage 13--Saturday, more pain.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

STAGE NINE

Kirsipuu dropped out on the first climb today. Strange, for a second there, it seemed like Alexandro Petacchi out there. He dropped out like a champ!

What we saw today was two riders losing out on a chance for victory due to complete stupidity. Simply put, you cannot ever, ever, ever have an escape caught in the last 50 meters. Landaluze and Simeoni spent the last k trying to jockey for position for a final sprint that would never come. Becuase while they were getting cute, the peleton caught up and vaulted their sprinters to the line. I want to say it's a shame, because the pair did enough work to win a stage, but it's not a shame. It's stupidity. And I find it hard to muster up some good vibes for two riders who threw away a stage win over bad tactics.




However, the good news for us was that we got to see the best sprint finish of the Tour. McEwen breat Hushovd and O'Grady in a furious finish which you could tell every sprinter knew was the biggest one for a long time. McEwen is safe in Green for awhile. But Thor's worked his way back into second place.

Now, the mountains, and the race for yellow begins!



Monday, July 12, 2004

All right, it's the end of week one and the riders are enjoying a rest/travel day. We can start making absurd judgements about this year's Tour based on only a few flat stages! Actually, I'm going to resist that temptation, and instead just demonstrate how worthless week one is in relation to the GC.

Lance Armstrong is 9:35 out and sits in 6th place. Do you know how may riders are within 9:35 of Lance? 125. That's well over half the field, so let's narrow it down even more. Second to Voeckler right now is Stuart O'Grady at 3:01 out. It just so happens there's a rider exactly 3:01 behind Armstrong. Richard Virenque, and he's in 58th overall. I'm declaring that three minute gap as the unofficial line between contention and just riding this out. For the record, Mayo is 15:02 out, a good five and half minutes down to Armstrong.

The point here is that the race for yellow hasn't even begun. The first week serves as an elimination test, but nobody can win the race here. This first week was all about the sprinters, and they deserve (and I think received) the lion's share of coverage. With that in mind, here is a collection of random observations from Week One.

- My wife finally came up with a nickname for Alexandro Petacchi: Abandon.

- RAGT's uniforms really do look like something a pizza delivery service would wear. I half expect these guys to weave through traffic to deliver messages to offices.

- We don't have enough people named after gods. I mean, Thor? It's like a Greek kid named Appollo. It's just very, very cool. And he's really showing that he's an incredible sprinter.

- It's time for Mayo to decide what's more important to him, riding for the Basques or riding for the yellow. He's just unable to win with Euskatel. He's accomplished all he can accomplish with this team. He needs to relaize even if he rides for, say, CSC, he can still honor his Basque homeland.

- I think it's cute the way Paolo Bettini aggressively defends his polka dot jersey in these flat stages. He can't honestly believe he'll win it, can he? We haven't even seen a real mountain!

- We love Lance, but could he please quit the whining about the course? We're not big fans of the organizers either, but the sheer volume of crashes has mainly been a function of the rainy weather, something we can't blame on the French. When aren't the early flat stages treacherous? Ask Levi Leipheimer what he thinks of the course this year in comparison to last.

- Jakob Piil just joined another breakaway.

- Erik Dekker just lost one minute in the GC.

- AG2R finally has an indentity with the emrgence of Nazon and Kirsipuu. They are out of the running for this year, but maybe they can go into next year's race training to be a sprint team.

- Team CSC has been awesome. They've dictated the pace even moreso than Postal, and they have three guys who are all legit top ten threats (Julich, Sastre, and Basso). And that's not even mentioning Piil and Voigt, who are having great Tours.

- Happy trails, Cipo.

- Haven't people in Fance ever heard of a leash? How does a dog cause a crash?

- Did Baden Cooke just forget how to sprint? He's just dropped off a cliff.

- Jason and I have little argument about who will attack first in the mountains. I say Mayo because he has to, Jason says Armstrong because he wants to. We'll find out soon who's right. Watch the first attack come from Axel Merckx just to spite us.

- I don't get to watch the action until I get home from work, so I usually end up watching the Roadside Tour instead of waiting for the prime time rebroadcast. So I think I can say, without reservation, that I hope the Cutters are involved in a serious Winnebago accident. What, did OLN do a nationwide search for the most annoying people they could find?

- I'll admit it, I find myself rooting for Tyler Hamilton. It's just that I'm a snob. I'm happy people are following the Tour because of Lance, but do we really have to put him on every magazine in the country? I'm waiting for his mug to show up on National Review and The Nation's annual cross-over editions. We're big fans of overkill, but could we please lay it on just a tad less?

- Adjusted predictions: The podium- 1 Armstrong, 2 Hamilton, 3 Ullrich, Green- McEwen, White- Casar, Dots- Mayo, Team- CSC.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Thor is cool!

I already thought Thor was cool, but he had this to say about his stage win..."The Vikings have returned to Brittany."

Hey, Thor, how's your hammer hanging?
Stage 8

Thor Hushovd had a big day, winning the stage and picking up 41 points between the finish line and the intermediate sprints. The sprint finish of this stage was pretty strange. A three man breakaway was caught at about 2km remaining. The course had several turns, an incline, and rain in the last kilometer. Paolo Bettini tried to escape with 1 km to go, and the only man to go with him was Robbie McEwen. When Bettini realized who was with him, he stopped the attack, thinking he'd just lead McEwen to the stage win, hurting his man Boonen. So, they were caught by the field.

Kim Kirchen attacked with a couple hundred meters remaining, and looked to have a good chance of winning the stage, but Thor Hushovd sprinted past Zabel, McEwen, and Kirchen like they were standing still. Credit Agricole did a great job catching the breakaway, but Hushovd did the sprint by himself without any lead out.

Thor wins stage 8.

photo from bbc.com


The green jeresy race is now very tight. McEwen outscored O'Grady today to re-take the jersey, but Hushovd and Zabel helped themselves by beating McEwen to the finish. McEwen now leads with 158 points. O'Grady, Zabel, and Hushovd are all within 11 points of McEwen. Hondo is still lurking 19 points down. Boonen (109) and Nazon (101) are probably out of it.

Monday is the first rest day, so the next stage isn't until Tuesday. Stage 9 is 160 km, somewhat hilly, with two category 4 climbs and 3 intermediate sprints.
FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com