Morons--right and wrong
We can officially stop eating crow on the topic of the Saunier Duval team. Riccardo Ricco tested positive for EPO and is gone. The whole team was pulled from the Tour. Either this is the act of team management that is party to the cheating and is running scared, or this is an overreaction that punishes the clean riders on the team. So long...we have a race to enjoy.
Mark Cavendish won another stage, his third of the Tour. No, there is no need to eat crow here, at least not yet. Last week when Poseur said Cavendish was out of the green jersey, he may have been prophetic. Three stage wins later, Cavendish is still 41 points behind the leader. Even if Cavendish wins the next two stages, he'd need Freire to finish far behind him in order to make significant gains. Then again, these guys still need to make it through the Alps, so nothing is certain. If Cavendish wishes to follow the example of great sprinters of the the past (Mario Chipolini, Alessandro Petachi), he'll abandon the race after Saturday's stage.
With the departure of Ricco, Sebastian Lang inherits the polka dot jersey and Vinny Nibali inherits the white jersey.
The KoM is a wide open race. Lang, with 58 points, leads his teammate, Kohl, by a measly 2 points. There are 15 guys with 20 or more points. There are 7 more category 1 or HC climbs remaining. You don't have to have many points to have a shot at this thing.
For the white jersey, Nibali leads his teammate, Kreutziger, by 2:42. Monfort is just a couple seconds behind him, and Andy Schleck is at +4:16. This will probably be a war of attrition. Whoever cracks less frequently and severely in the mountains will win.
Oh, yeah...Cadel Evans still has the yellow jersey by 1 second over Frank Schleck. He didn't slap anyone today.
Mark Cavendish won another stage, his third of the Tour. No, there is no need to eat crow here, at least not yet. Last week when Poseur said Cavendish was out of the green jersey, he may have been prophetic. Three stage wins later, Cavendish is still 41 points behind the leader. Even if Cavendish wins the next two stages, he'd need Freire to finish far behind him in order to make significant gains. Then again, these guys still need to make it through the Alps, so nothing is certain. If Cavendish wishes to follow the example of great sprinters of the the past (Mario Chipolini, Alessandro Petachi), he'll abandon the race after Saturday's stage.
With the departure of Ricco, Sebastian Lang inherits the polka dot jersey and Vinny Nibali inherits the white jersey.
The KoM is a wide open race. Lang, with 58 points, leads his teammate, Kohl, by a measly 2 points. There are 15 guys with 20 or more points. There are 7 more category 1 or HC climbs remaining. You don't have to have many points to have a shot at this thing.
For the white jersey, Nibali leads his teammate, Kreutziger, by 2:42. Monfort is just a couple seconds behind him, and Andy Schleck is at +4:16. This will probably be a war of attrition. Whoever cracks less frequently and severely in the mountains will win.
Oh, yeah...Cadel Evans still has the yellow jersey by 1 second over Frank Schleck. He didn't slap anyone today.
posted by uberschuck at 9:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home