Stage 8: The "Real" Tour Begins

First off, I've never derided intemediate sprints. Those points matter. I agreed with you that Boonen's dominance not only on the overall stages, but also picking up every point on the intermediate sprints made him seemingly unbeatable. That crash in stage 6 helped Hushovd make a move back in this thing. Hell, Zabel once won a green doing nothing but winning every intermediate sprint he could. Those crumbs add up. And when you're getting killed, you need all the help you can get.

Secondly, a big apology. I've been real busy the last few days selling my house, so I've been unable to post. I've been watching and following the news, but I just haven't seemed to be able to sit down and get all my thoughts together. So excuse me if this post is a little long and gets disjointed. I have a lot to rant about. Actually, let's take these things one at a time...

Stage 8

What's up with Discovery? How can they leave Lance alone like that? I can't believe it was because they couldn't hack a Category 2 climb. At the base of the climb, six Disco riders were at the front of the peleton. Six. The first attack, by Vinokourov, was just five minutes later. After the resulting counter-attacks over the next two kilometers, there wasn't a single Discovery jersey left. Where did they go? Were they just got flat-footed by the flurry of attacks? Were they simply outmaneuvered?

I just don't believe that. It doesn't stand to reason that suddenly Lance's team has gone from tactical masters to dupes. And there's no way its that they couldn't hack the climb. That leaves only one other option I can think of: they were feigning weakness. Hell, Armstrong went to the press after the race to complain about how much he suffered. If there's one thing we've learned is to never believe him when he says he's suffering. It's always been an act.

Which leads to the next questiom: why? What do they gain by encouraging everybody to attack? Well, it could be that they want the contenders to thin each other out and then pick off the survivors. These guys put a ton of effort into picking up absolutely no time on Armstrong. All of these attacks don't just weaken Armstrong, they weaken all of the attackers. I mean, did you notice that Ivan Basso was not among the ten riders leading the climb? He caught everyone on the descent, but he didn't waste his time on attack after attack. Guys like Vino, Ullrich, and Julich did. It's not like the other Disco riders are looking to contend in the GC. It makes sense to conserve energy on a day like today. T-Mobile threw a lot into this stage, and they came up with nothing.

Kloden looks strong, as does Vino. Ullrich looks like Ullrich, the unfortunate guy who Lance has decided to mark ruthlessly. They dictated the action on this stage, and they luanched attack after attack. They cannot do that on every stage, they'll kill themselves. You have to pick your spots a little, but all three of their leaders attacked and at the end of the day, came home with nothing. That's not an encouraging sign.

And give it up for Rabobank! My little Dutch boys! Though I still don't believe Weening won that final sprint. Seriously, could their Tour be going any better right now? How does Erik Dekker get to wear the polka dots? And then have the nerve to wear a polka dotted helmet, like he expected to be in dots? How awesome is that?

More potshots at T-Mobile

Yes, it's not fair, and if the end up winning the Tour, I'm gonna have a whole plate full of crow to eat, but it's just too much fun.

What does Rudi Altig, German cycling great think of Ullrich. Well, let's ask him.

"He's beginning to tire me. With Ullrich, it's always the same thing. Last year, he won the Tour of Switzerland in the mountains, this year he lost it in the mountains - and his team (T-Mobile) continue to tell us that he's stronger than he was last year. I don't think they're doing him any favors."

"Jan earns 250,000 euros a month, but what does he give back to cycling? Before the Tour he didn't even bother to come and race the national championships. And the most astonishing thing is that at T-Mobile, nobody bothers to question him. In any case, no one can say anything to him. It seems he's a law unto himself."

How great is this? Who isn't taking shots at Ullrich? Zabel, his former manager, his teammates, internet jackasses, and now former greats. Ullrich can't be having a fun time right now.

Oh, the USA Today is reporting that Discovery will try and sign Vino in the offseason. Just to let you know.

The fight for Green

Husovd has emerged as the biggest threat to the seemingly invincible Boonen. But the race is moving into Thor's territory: the mountains. OK, Hushovd's not a great climber, but he's better at it than most sprinters. Meaning this is his chance to pick up some points that Boonen will not get. Or even better, maybe Boonen won't make it through the mountains at all. He's down by 5 points. He has a shot to overtake the lead in the mountains if he can hang onto the peleton while Boonen gets dropped off the back.

He's still the underdog, but he's back in the running. But we're not gonna talk much about the Green jersey for the next few days.

It's time for the GC to take center stage. Our first Category One climb is tommorrow. Stage 10 has got two of them. And stage 11? Well, the Cat. 1 is the easy climb on Wednesday.

Stage 8 Analysis

A category 2 climb 15 km from the finish separates the contenders from the peloton, not from each other. Don't read too much into the results of stage 8. The Tour will be decided not when 86 riders finish within 3 minutes of the stage winner, but when the lead group of elite climbers gets blown apart on big climbs at the finish. Look to stage 10, which ends with a category 1 climb, stage 14, which has a category 1 and an HC in the final 30 km, and stage 15, which has 4 category 1 climbs and a final HC climb.

Is the shoe on the other foot in regards to Telekom and Discovery? Telekom now has all of their three contenders in the top 10, less than 2 minutes behind Armstrong. They've had two different guys finish second in the last 3 stages. The attacks are threatening Armstrong's position. It looks worse when Armstrong gets isolated. Not one of his teammates could climb the mountain with him today. The yellow jersey group had 32 men in it--what are the odds Beltran, Asevedo, Rubiera, Savoldeli, Popovych, and Hincapie can't make that climb?

At first when I saw it I figured that the team decided not to waste the energy. They were really moving fast--about 40 kph. With 15 km of decent after the climb, I assumed they figured there could not be much damage done. Just save strength for later.

That may be true, but even so, they need to look strong, not weak, because that encourages attacks. Best case--they are bluffing. Worst case--the whole team caught some infection and they are going to drop like flies.

More likely, they just weren't prepared for such a fast tempo on that climb. We've always seen these guys riding a slower tempo on harder climbs to break the competition down. This was certainly an odd climb.

Stage 9 will be an odd one too. There is a category 2 climb, followed by a category 1, but it is 55 km from the finish. Really, the contenders would be silly to attack on these mountains because if they drop anyone, they'll be isolated for over an hour on the way to the finish. They'll wear down and the whole thing will backfire. This is a stage built for the guys who want to win the King of the Mountains. Attack early; get your points, then cruise on in.

Still, an attack from Vinokourov should always be expected, so if I'm Johan Bruyneel, I send Savoldeli or Rubiera in the early breakaway just in case the rest of the team loses it on the climbs again. That way, Lance will have a teammate to join him if needed.

I don't expect fireworks tomorrow. I expect an explosion on Tuesday's stage.

Other notes on stage 8.

Congrats to Pete Weening for winning the stage. He almost screwed it up by sprinting too late. Rookie! And did you notice how he spat on his own face. He was shooting out more saliva than Harry Carey. (photo below from velonews.com)

Rabobank have been all over the place. Weening got their stage win today, but they have had three different guys wear the polka dot jersey so far. Nice going, and we haven't even mentioned Denis Menchov yet.

Joseba Beloki did finish in the yellow jersey group. It's good to see he can handle a decent climb. No one is expecting a win, Joseba, just keep riding well to Paris.

Popovych lost the white jersey to Karpets by 1 second. Doh! That's what you get for taking it easy.

Dave Zabriskie was an hour behind the winner and barely missed being elimiated. He's still suffering from that crash earlier in the week and is only a few seconds away from going from yellow jersey to lantern rouge.

On a day off for the sprinters, Thor Hushovd jumped off the peloton to join a breakaway after McEwen & Boonen had been dropped. He took 6 points in an intermediate sprint. That other guy who writes on this page laughed at the idea of going for intermediate sprint points, but he needs to consider this. In the last 2 stages Thor has scored 12 in the IS; Boonen has scored 8; McEwen has scored zero. Today Boonen's lead on Hushovd is 5 points and his lead on McEwen is 37. These things are not insignificant. However, the none of the sprinters are going to pick up points in stage 9, as all the IS are after the first big climb.

Three winners in stage 6

I had never heard of Lorenzo Bernucci until he won stage 6. It's always fun when a dark horse pulls out a stage win. And this was the first win of his career. Wow! It was purely an opportunist win, as about 15 guys crashed in the last turn. Vinokourov probably would have won the stage had he not swerved to avoid Mengin's crash. Bernucci happened to be in the right place at the right time. Take the stage win & run.

Vinokourov is the second winner today. He finished 7 seconds ahead of the peloton, including all the contenders. He also picked up a time bonus for being second across the finish line, so he cut Armstrong's lead by 19 seconds. Yesterday he was 7th, 1:21 behind Lance. Today he's 3rd, 1:02 down. The time is small, but every bit helps, and the morale boost is good for Telekom.

The Telekom coaches still aren't worth the caliber of their riders. Here's Olaf Ludwig on their team web page...

"That will give Armstrong something to chew on," is how team manager Olaf Ludwig judged Vino's tactical masterstroke. "Armstrong was watching Jan exactly at the moment that Vino attacked. That shows the tactical hand we have to play with in the coming stages."

What will it take for them to realize that Vino is their best shot? Will they ever let go of the Jan Ullrich mystique?

The third winner is Thor Hushovd. While all the other green jersey contenders were on their backsides, Thor stayed upright and was 5th across the line, good for 22 points. Zero for Boonen, McEwen, and O'Grady. This is exactly what he needed. He's now just 7 points off Boonen's lead. Hushovd is the only guy to get big points in every sprint, but he can't expect gifts like this every day. He's going to have to beat Boonen in a sprint. More than once.

Stage 5: McEwen Wins a Stage

“I should have had third-place points from the sprint in Tours but the ‘commissaires’ didn’t agree." -- Robbie McEwen

Oh, shut the hell up. You head-butted Stuart O'Grady, and you deserved to be relegated. Try to not cheat next time and maybe you wouldn't get in trouble. It's always someone else's fault, ain't? I know McEwen is ticked and still frustrated, but what is whining about it two days later gonna do? You just won a stage, and you're gonna take potshots at the judges? Why?

Boonen's lead just gets bigger. It's now up to 29 points over the second place rider, Thor Hushovd. We've been talkinga lot about Lance's dominance, but we're seeing even bigger margins in the points competition. Hell, we've only had three road stages and in those three days, Boonen has built an almost insurmountable lead. 29 points over second place is massive, particularly after only three stages. It defies analysis, its like the other guys aren't even trying. forget intermediate sprints, the only way to catch Boonen is for him to either A) abandon or B) finish out of the top ten in a stage that one of the few guys within 35 points wins outright. His lead is that big.

But you want a quote of the day, how about Laurent Jalabert in l'Equipe?

"Armstrong was grimacing. His teammates certainly made sure he did the last relay, but not long before then, when (George) Hincapie pulled off to the side, Armstrong didn't do his relay. Did he finish in the red? Despite appearances, he must surely be finding things a bit difficult. One of his pluses is being able to hide it."

Did Jalabert hit his head? Armstrong grimaced? Are we this desperate in our searc for weakness? Grimacing?! Seriously? That's the best we got? OK, Poulidor responded by pointing out how remarkably stupid this was, so its not every former French cyclist who is insane, just Jalabert.

A slow day on the course. The big news was stupid people saying really stupid things. The only thing to really watch for is whether Lance can actually hang onto the yellow jersey during these flat stages. It's not a team goal, obviously, but all of those sprinter's teams keep reeling in every breakway in a desperate search for points. Lotto and Credit Agricole are doing the heavy lifting for Discovery Channel. I'm sure they'll get thank you cards in the mail.

McEwen wins one, loses one

McEwen ought to be happy about winning stage 5, but his struggle for the green jersey got harder today. Boonen finished second on the stage, which is worth 30 points to McEwen's 35, but Boonen also won the first intermediate sprint, which is worth 6 points. So, Boonen scored 36 on the day and McEwen scored 35.

What sort of crime does a guy have to commit to get such bad karma?

So, the lesson should be learned now--go for the intermediate sprints. They aren't worthless. If you don't take them, someone else will.

Quote of the day: whoever said "No wonder Paris didn't get the Olympics" in response to Jean Marie LeBlanc forcing Armstrong to break the tradition of not wearing the yellow jersey a day after inheriting it because of a crash. The other explanation must be that they didn't have a good enough bribe for the IOC.

Team Time Trial Digest

By now you know Discovery set a new record for the team time trial. The old record for average speed was set 10 years ago by Gewiss with a time trial of 54.93 kph. Discovery smashed that record with an average speed of 57.31 kph.

Here's what they didn't tell you. Domina Vacanze, the 13th place team did 67.5 kilometers in 1:13:43, or 1.228611 hours. Average speed = 54.94 kph. That's right, 13 teams broke a record that had stood for 10 years. Read that again. Over half the field beat the record.

Discovery: Yes, they are good. Popovych now wears the white jersey. They would have been better with Ekimov, so it is fitting that they dedicated the win to him.

CSC: The crash and the loss of both the stage and the jersey hurt, but in terms of the big prize, Basso has to be pleased. He lost only 2 seconds to Armstrong and put time on everyone else.

Telekom: Maybe they are reading our page. We've been ripping them big time, but they were really motivated and brought their A-game for the TTT. They've always underperformed in this event, but they were great today.

Liberty: This is the old ONCE team, what's left of it. ONCE excelled at the TTT. Last year they were awful, but they were really, really good today. Even Roberto Heras looked OK in the time trial.

Phonak: Good team, but depth is obviously a problem. This is the second consecutive year they sloughed off all but 5 men. The 5 hustle to turn in a good time, but they need to hit on all cylinders to win this thing.

Do you hate the scoring system for this thing? I'm going to take the liberty of making the very first chart of this Tour to show the differences in real time versus awarded time differences among a few teams.

Team: awarded time gap (actual gap)
Phonak: 0:50 (1:31)
Credit Agricole: 1:00 (1:41)
Illes Baleras (Banesto): 1:10 (2:05)
Gerolsteiner: 1:20 (2:05)
Euskaltel: 2:25 (3:59)

There are a lot of contenders on those teams, and they got a gift of 30-90 seconds because of the sucky rules. Did I mention that I don't like the rules?

But that hasn't prevented Mayo from losing almost 6 minutes to Armstrong before we get near a mountain.


One more look back at the finish of stage 3. After seeing the replay about a billion times, I don't think McEwen got jobbed at all. It's true that O'Grady had his arm bent out--a little bit. McEwen still initiated the contact, and he hit O'Grady with his head twice. It's a wonder they didn't wreck. Really, it's worth sending the message. If you use another guys arm as a pillow, you're getting sent to the back of the peloton.

Speaking of wrecks...Zabriskie's crash wasn't caused by a barrier or a turn, but there were still too many obstacles in the last couple km of stage 4. It's amazing no one crashed in all those turns. The Tour organizers have to avoid these things. And that part where they put in a bottleneck to cut the road to one lane was just stupid.

Finally, I should point out this is the second straight year someone has gotten screwed out of mercy because the rules of the time trial don't match that of a regular stage. If a rider crashes within the final 3 km of a flat stage, he gets the same time of the group he was with at the time of the crash. But in a team time trial that only applies to the final km. Today that cost Zabriskie his yellow jersey. Last year it cost Gilberto Simoni 2 minutes. If the Tour organizers are going out of their way to lessen the value of the TTT, they might as well give the riders the same leeway that they give for a crash on a flat stage.

It was close to being a great day for CSC. They had a slight edge at every checkpoint, and it looked like there was going to be a real chink in the Disco armor. Riis said his team's goal was to win the stage, and they went out and proved it. They were going to beat Discovery at its own game, take the time trial, hold onto the yellow jersey, and get Basso a little bit closer to the lead.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way.



Photo from CyclingNews

Well, in the end, it wasn't that bad. You hate to lose the yellow jersey by crashing 2k from the finish line, but its not like Zabriskie was going to win the Tour. And its not like CSC has bigger goals, like Basso winning it all. And losing two seconds to Armstrong means diddly squat, and everyone knows it.

But it doesn't make it suck any less. CSC is probably our favorite team, and with good reason, they are more fun. T-Mobile is a dysfunctional mess of warring egos and me-first hatreds. Discovery is the opposite, a boring as hell team devoted to one man's pursuit of excellence. CSC is the "other" great team, but they have personality. It's like the island of misfit toys, only all of the castoffs are back to kick the crap out of the big guns who snubbed them. We want CSC to do well.

Zabriskie losing the maillot jaune was inevitable, but couldn't he have lost it on a sprint or at least on some rider's epic breakway? Losing it on a crash is so disappointing. The crash probably cost CSC the few seconds they lost the stage by. Sure, its bad luck, but bad luck that costs you about five seconds is the best kind of bad luck to have.

Armstrong's in yellow, but Basso and Vino are in great position right now. Let's watch the sprinters fight until we get to the mountains on Monday.

Stage 3: Erik Dekker's Big Day

We poke a lot of fun at Erik Dekker. He has the nasty habit of crashing out, or losing by several hours. Which isn't to say he isn't a good rider, he's an excellent rider. The Grand Tours aren't exactly his bag, but he's exactly outstanding in one-day classics. He always rides the Tour and he always competes.

Today was his shot, and he absolutely dominated the breakaway. OK, the break didn't work, as he got swallowed up about 2k from the finish, but he gets a fabulous parting gift: the polka dot jersey. You can tell its early because Erik Dekker is in dots. But he earned it.

Speaking of earning it, Boonen dominated that final sprint. He's got two stage wins right now, which can't make Hushovd or McEwen feel very good about themselves. This was a completely honest sprint, it was pretty much a question of which sprinter is the strongest. Answer, Tom Boonen. Hushovd collapsed and finished 10th. I have to look at this and say that Boonen is the best sprinter, so if Hushovd or McEwen are gonna win the Green Jersey, they need some help from the team.

Oh, and we found that CSC ain't gonna lift a finger to defend their yellow jersey. It's neat they have an early leader, but they aren't going to deviate from the overall strategy: protect Basso. A fun stage, I like those big breakaways.

Boonen strikes first

So the first bunch sprint and 35 points go to Tom Boonen. Hushovd and McEwen were 2nd & 3rd on the stage. After the stage McEwen admitted he started his sprint too early, which is obvious on the replay. O' Grady picked up 24 points for his 4th place. Baden Cooke managed to salvage 17 points with a 9th place finish. Robbie Hunter earned a respectable 20 points between a 12th place finish and an intermediate sprint. A couple of the heavy hitters were shut out. Kirsipuu only got 3 points for being 23rd across the line. Jean-Patrick Nazon finished behind Lance Armstrong--no points for that.

The Boonen-Hushovd-McEwen trio is going to be slugging it out like this for weeks. Guys like O'Grady, Cooke, and Hunter aren't going to beat them regularly, so they had better be opportunists and think about the intermediate sprints to make up points. And here's a memo for Nazon--you can't come up empty and expect to be a factor.

Three cheers for Thomas Voeckler who wears the first polka dot jersey. His attack on David Canada to take the points was great, and I love the way this guy competes. If anything of value is within reach, Voeckler fights for it with all he's got. Stage 3 has another category 4 climb 20 km from the start, so expect him to try to pick that up too so he can hang on to that jersey.

And the other good news of the stage...no one crashed out. There was a minor crash near the end, but no one was seriously hurt, not even Erik Dekker.