Stage 5: Freire & Boonen counterpunch

Oscar Freire and Tom Boonen took a bit out of McEwen’s lead today, finishing 1-2 in Caen. The bonus for them is that two riders who are low in the points standings (Isasi and Kopp) finished ahead of 5th place McEwen. That gap means McEwen picked up 22 points compared to 35 for Freire and 30 for Boonen. Zabel and Hushovd were both in the top 10, but since both had zero points on stage 4, they are far behind now. Daniele Bannati was a big loser on the day—no points for his 165th place finish.

Current standings:
Robbie McEwen 122
Tom Boonen 121
Oscar Freire 115
Daniele Bennati 86
Thor Hushovd 81
Erik Zabel 76

There is a lot of racing yet to go, so mathematically, anyone can win, but for the moment it’s a three man race with a few other riders fighting for scraps. The bottom three on that list have all had goose egg days. To get back in contention, they need the top 3 to have goose egg days or abandon the Tour.

Notice that Robbie McEwen finally started to care about the intermediate sprints today. It has always seemed like he totally ignores them, which can be dangerous because competitors can pick up a few points here and there. Today he sent a teammate to pick up third place at each intermediate sprint, preventing his rivals from making up ground.

By the way, the teams of the sprinters have amazing precision at chasing down the breakaways. Even after today’s escapees built a 12 minute lead, the peloton still caught them in the last 5 km.

OK, one more day of this until the race of truth.