On a stage featuring the Tourmalet and Hautacam you’d figure Oscar Friere would be one of the anonymous riders, but he had the brilliant idea to start a breakaway so he could get 12 points in the intermediate sprints. That was enough to take the green jersey from Kirchen. We’ve been saying Kirchen could do damage against the sprinters by picking up a few points here and there on mountain stages, and he did get 4 pts. in stage 9. Advantage neutralized.
At first the climb up Tourmalet was chaotic, with various cyclists launching attacks out of the large peloton constantly. Finally CSC providing something this Tour has been missing—they took control of the peloton. They had 4 men at the lead and Jens Voigt set the pace for several kilometers. He cut the peloton by about 75%. With Sastre and the Schleck brothers right behind him, he forced Cunego and Valverde off the back and they never recovered. Evans, Menchov and Kirchen remained, but lost all their teammates. Voigt has always been an uber-domestique, and this was some of his finest work.
If the Tourmalet belonged to CSC, the Saunier Duval team owned Hautacam. Leo Piepoli and Jose Cobo launched an attack that only Frank Schleck could match, until they dropped him near the finish line. Kim Kirchen was dispatched, eventually leaving a chase group of Menchov, Evans, Sastre, Ricco, and VandeVelde, who is riding way over his head here. So, Piepoli won the stage and Evans finished fast enough to take the yellow jersey by 1 second over Frank Schleck.
New overall standings:
1. Evans
2. Frank Schleck +0:01
3. Vande Velde +0:38
4. Kohl +0:46
5. Menchov +0:57
6. Sastre +1:28
7. Kirchen +1:56
8. Cobo +2:10
9. Ricco +2:29
10. Efimkin +2:32
14. Valverde +4:41
16. Cunego +5:37
The last two guys are in a world of hurt now, but the top 10 are within 3 minutes of each other. Game on! Sastre may have squandered a golden opportunity today. Menchov, Schelck, and Evans have a tight race. Kirchen is damaged, but it’s not disasterous. Then there are the guys lurking under the radar like Kohl, Efimkin, and VandeValde.
And I’ll continue to eat crow on Saunier Duval. Today they picked up their 3rd stage win, they placed 3 in the top 6 on the stage, and Ricco now wears the white jersey and the KoM jersey. All that, and they took the lead in the team competition.
1 Comments:
I've already eaten crow in advance, and I'll continue to do so. Saunier Duval has been awesome. And Ricco is stirring up memories not only of Panani but, dare I say it, Claudio Chiapucci. He's just recklessly attacking in the mountains and I love it.
I'll have my own post after I get home from work, but CSC proved its the best team in this Tour today. so at least we got one thing right.
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