Saturday, July 23, 2005

Tune up the fat lady

Not much time to post today, but I'll have more in the days to come. Obviously there will be a report on Stage 21. On Monday and/or Tuesday we'll to the team evaluation and hand out awards--figuring out the all-star team isn't easy this year.

Lance Armstrong finally won a stage. The final time trial of his career was like watching the master artist work in his finest medium. There were other tight races in front of him, but more accurately they were beneath him. Lance is going to win this thing by nearly 5 minutes, and with the exception of stage 12, he has been passive in the face of his rivals. It has become boring. I can't wait until next year when someone else has a chance to win.

Armstrong may be in a league of his own, but Jan Ullrich beat the snot out of everyone else. Only one guy was within a minute of Ullrich. Only 5 were within 2 minutes. He was going to overtake Rasmussen for third even if Rasmussen hadn't fallen off his bike half a dozen times. In fact, Jan could have fallen off his bike once just to help everyone else out.

Speaking of Rasmussen, his day was a nightmare. He looked nervous. When he fell the first time he had already lost a ton of time and the writing was on the wall, but he went from losing 3rd place to losing 4th, 5th, and 6th too. Just how many mechanical problems and bike changes did he have? Everything went wrong. It was like a Steve Martin movie, or like watching Neel Shah in real life. At least he didn't crash out of the Tour. Tomorrow he'll be on the podium as the King of the Mountains.

Yes, Rasmussen beat Iban Mayo in the time trial anyway.

I thought Leipheimer would overtake Mancebo in the standings because Levi is an excellent time trialist and Mancebo is a crummy one. Well, Levi had a pedestrian day. Mancebo did the best time trial of his life. He not only kept his lead, he improved it. Mancebo will head to Paris in 4th place, which sounds a lot better than saying he's 9:59 behind the lead.

Alex Vinokourov did a great race and moved into 6th place in the overall standings, just two seconds behind Levi Leipheimer. Tomorrow, Vino's going to try to make that up with the time bonuses for the intermediate sprints. Maybe McEwen or O'Grady should follow his wheel.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Into the home stretch

I've enjoyed the style of the last two stages. Each time, the peloton took it easy for 3/4 of the race, allowing a big breakaway to get a ton of time. Each time we were treated to two races, first for the stage, then for the podium in Paris. Ullrich and Basso are riding with a mission, so the leaders are having to ride hard to keep up rather than just ride cruise control to the final time trial.

Marcos Serrano did in stage 18 what Oscar Pereiro didn't do in stage 15. He attacked a few km from the finish to drop the better sprinter. If you're the better climber, use your advantage. Serrano did; Pereiro didn't. Liberty gets a stage win and Roberto Heras had nothing to do with it.

In the race for the podium Ullrich and Basso were at it again. This time they got a 37 second gap on Rasmussen. At the start of the day Rasmussen's lead on Ullrich was almost 3 minutes, and I was pretty sure Jan would make that up in the time trial. Now that it's down to 2:12, I think it's a lock. Two years ago Ullrich and Armstrong were riding an epic time trial because they were only separated by a minute. I think this time they'll repeat it and flirt with the time trial record. Lance will be gunning for a signature stage win to top off his career. Ullrich will be aiming for the podium and one last chance to beat Armstrong at something. They're going to do a great race on Saturday.

Telekom had a man in the breakaway. This time Kessler didn't crash and puncture a lung, so he vaults Telekom back into the lead in team time. I think Discovery will beat them in the time trial, but they won't make up 9 minutes.

In response to the talk about Hincapie & Pereiro, I'll add a little more. Yes, Hincapie took advantage of Pereiro by sitting on his wheel, but it's not as though he drafted off him in a windy, flat stage. It was up a mountain--Pereiro's turf. If Hincapie agreed to work together, then he did Oscar rotten. Tough noogies. If you can't drop a sprinter-turned-mountain domestique on the incline, it's your fault. Pro cycling is the most cut-throat of all sports. Sometimes the guys have great sportsmanship, other times Vinokourov attacks after a crash in the peloton (see stage 17). Remember Savoldelli's stage win? He tried to use Sebastien Hinault to stay ahead of the chasers. When he saw them closing in because Hinault couldn't keep the pace, he attacked him. Not a dirty move, just competitive. 'Cause at the moment of truth, selfishness rules.

Here's an interesting fact. So far 14 different men have won individual stages in this Tour. For ten of them, it was their first ever TdF stage win. In fact, the last 5 have all been first time winners.

Oh, and Oscar Sevilla has always been a fine domestique.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Last Few Days

The Tour has had really bad timing for my personal life. I'm moving right now, and I've spent the last few days packing. I've had time to watch the Tour and of course follow the coverage, but no time to organize my thoughts and write them out. So you're getting a few days worth of crap. Again.

OSCAR PEREIRO

I'm not sure he's a GC man. He's 14th overall, but he's like an ill-disciplined domestique for Floyd Landis. I don't think he harbors any illusion that he was going to be on the podium, but I do think after Stage 10 he felt that he deserved a stage win. I mean, he went out and made an insane attack the day after he made an insane attack. The guy is a beast. We thought we were going to miss Jakob Piil (well, actually I have), but Pereiro is filled the role of absolutely insane attacking fiend.

And Hincapie did kind of screw him on Stage 15. I like Hincapie, and I'm going to write about him later in this post, but he did absolutely no work on that breakway. And while that's acceptable when there was still a chance they'd get caught by Armstrong, once he got the green light to go for the win it's just common courtesy to take your turn at the front. According to Hincapie, he just couldn't get around the front due to the Basque fans, which is a somewhat believable excuse. The shot from the motorbike looked like they were riding through Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

Pereiro earned a stage win. He's been the most agressive rider in this year's Tour, but of course the French organizers will give that award to someone like Moreau for no apparent reason, just so the French get some hardware. He needed a stage win to cement his place in this year's Tour. I'm really happy he won a stage, and its fitting he won it on another ridiculous attack. The fates are often cruel in cycling, so we should enjoy the times a rider is justly rewarded.

T-MOBILE
I've been pretty relentless on T-Mobile this year, but I do want to say that Jan Ullrich showed a ton of heart on stage 15. Basso made his move, Armstrong followed, but Ullrich just couldn't find that quick burst. It's not his style. So he upped the pace and methodically tracked the two contenders down. He hung for about a kilometer, and they dropped him again.

Instead of bonking, Ullrich found help from one of his teammates: Oscar Sevilla. This of course begs the question of whatever happened to Kelme? But that's another story. Ullrich latched onto his teammate's whell and Sevilla pulled him up the mountain. Ullrich lost only a minute and half to the big two, but he stayed even with Rasmussen. If ever there was a time for Ullrich to just give up, this was it. He found it in himself to dig deep, keep fighting, and even show some uncharacteristic teamwork for T-Mobile. On one of those days he wasn't his strongest, I gained a lot of respect for Ullrich. I don't back down from the comment he's psychologically whipped by Armstrong, but he's still one tough guy. And kudos to Sevilla for actually riding like a domestique on the world's most selfish team. That's when its hardest to ride selflessly, but he did it. And not enough credit is going his way for that ride.

DISCOVERY
We can agree that barring a complete disaster, Lance is going to win. It hasn't been his most dominating performance, and his team has left him high and dry a few times in critical stages, but he's got the maillot jaune. It would be nice if he won at least one stage, though.

A few years ago, I commented on how much it must suck to ride for Postal (now Discovery). Everything centers on Armstrong, and you have to give up any hope of individual glory in order to acheive Lance's goals. Lance's goals become your goals. You are a faceless member of the Blue Train, and you simply aren't allwoed to go for individual glories. It works because Lance always wins. If he didn't, Discovery would quickly become T-Mobile. CSC's got tons of talent as well, but you get the feeling of the big three, they are the loosest team, the only one where it is okay to be an individual.

Anyway, this year has been strange because Lance's domestiques were the most unreliable they have been in years. He hasn't had that Blue Train. Discovery has controlled the peleton, but not to the same extent as past years, and several mountain stages have been complete disasters. There's been more criticism of Lance's domestiques than ever before.

Yet, look at the hardware. For the first time, Discovery might win the team competition. Popovych is almost a shoo-in to win the white jersey. For the first time since Armstrong started winning yellow, one of his teammates won a stage. And they won two of them. If I told you going in that discovery would win three stages, you would never guess the three winners were the team (in the TTT), Salvodelli, and Hincapie. Seriously, George Hincapie winning a mountain stage? That's like Jose Azevedo winning a bunch sprint. You don't expect it to happen. Looking at their fabulous prizes, this will go down as the most successful Tour in the team's history. The odd thing is, they don't seem as dominant. Bizarre.

COFIDIS
Why the hell are Cofidis and Lotto allowing so many breakaways? Don't they know their lead sprinters can beat Hushovd? These points are important, and Hushovd is happily watching them go to riders who are no threat to his lead.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Stage 17: boring, not boring

It was the longest stage of the Tour not only this year, but in 5 years. When the 17 man breakaway reached a gap of 20 minutes, it seemed like the only action of the day would be finding out who wins the stage.

How the stage was won turned out to be an illustration of what separates the men from the boys. Almost all of the 17 were domestiques. Paolo Savoldelli is a two time Giro d'Italia champ. First there was an attack that separated 9 from 8 chasers. A little cat. 3 climb precipitated a couple attacks to thin it out even more. At first Savoldelli didn't respond to Hinault's attack, but then climbed up to the lead with ease. He outclassed everyone on the climb. When a group of 4 came together with 2 km to go, Savoldelli outclassed them again. Unlike Sylvain Chavenel, who lost a stage because he played cat & mouse for positioning, Savoldelli kept his pace up. Instead of losing the stage by out-maneuvering himself, he rode hard, got the wheel of the man in front of him, and out-sprinted all for a stage win. Savoldelli is doing the Tour just to be a team player for Discovery--it's not like his main goal was to win a stage. But he was in position and just outclassed everyone around him.

Does Alexandre Vinokourov ever give it a rest? No. He attacked on that dinky little climb just after there was a crash in the peloton--cycling is such a cut-throat sport. Vino and the Tour leaders--Lance, Ullrich, Basso, Rasmussen, Popovych all put the hammer down to keep a 20 second advantage over the rest of the peloton. It was really a little thing, but the 20 seconds moved Vino into 7th place, jumping ahead of Floyd Landis and Cadel Evans. It's what Phil Ligett would call a cheeky move. This is just one day after another cheeky move--announcing that he's leaving Telekom when his contract is up. Well, Duh.

There were no changes in the green jersey race, but there was a huge change in the team competition. Telekom had a large lead at the start of the stage, but they only had one man in the breakaway. Discovery had two, so they made up 20 minutes. Telekom's 20 minute lead is now a 37 second defecit. It was just dumb that they let the breakaway take that much time. It's almost like they are trying to lose. Kloden abandoned because of a broken wrist, so that'll make it harder for them to overcome Discovery. Here's a wild guess--Ullrich & Vino will attack on the rolling hills at the end of stage 18.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Oscar Pereiro's Wacky July

Consider what Oscar Pereiro has experienced in the last couple weeks.

July 2, Stage 1 time trial: He enters the Tour as one of Phonak's 3 candidate team leaders. He finishes the time trial 58th, 2 minutes behind the winner, 30 seconds behind teammate Botero and 1 minute behind teammate Landis.

July 12, Stage 10: On the first big mountain stage, he attacks on the penultimate climb, burns out, and finishes 7:29 behind the stage winner. He falls to 28th overall, 10 minutes behind the yellow jersey. He's also 5 minutes behind Botero and 6 minutes behind Landis. After the first real mountain stage, he has no claim to team leadership.

July 13, Stage 11: Pererio attacks 130 km from the finish, before two HC and one category 1 climb. He gets caught by Botero and Vinokourov, then dropped. Then he's caught and dropped by the peloton, finishing 7 minutes back again. He moves up to 30th place, but is almost 17 minutes behind Armstrong and over 10 minutes behind Landis & Botero.

July 16th, Stage 14: Goes with early breakaway, but then returns to the peloton. Gets dropped by the elite climbers during the attacks.

July 17th , Stage 15: Goes with 14 man breakaway 150 km from finish. Survives at front for 8 climbs until being passed by George Hincapie 300 meters from the finish line. He's second on the stage, picking up 5 minutes on the yellow jersey. At this point he's 17th overall, nearly 20 minutes out, 10 minutes behind Landis. Botero is off the map.

July 19th, Stage 16: Attacks on the category 1 climb 110 km from finish. He catches the breakaway, goes over an HC climb, then out-sprints the lead group to finally get his stage win. He picks up 3 and a half minutes on the peloton. Currently, he's 15th place, almost 16 minutes behind Armstrong and almost 7 minutes behind Landis. Botero is still off the map.

*******************
His repeated attacks are foolish for anyone who thinks himself a team leader and yellow jersey contender. But his stamina is amazing. On four stages he's exposed himself to long breakaways over mountain passes. He's experienced the crash & burn, the one that got away, and the Holy Grail stage win. What a wild ride!

On Sunday he complained about George Hincapie sitting on his wheel all day until he came around to claim the stage in one sprint. Well, I can understand why he felt bad. He did lead the way, only to have someone else win the stage. But spare us the whining. Hincapie isn't going to set tempo because his man is in yellow. By the time they were in the last couple km, Pereiro should have dropped Hincapie. He tried, but George stayed on his wheel. Everyone who was watching knew the sprinter would beat the climber in the home stretch. Why didn't the climber use his best weapon and lose the sprinter before the sprint? Well, that's water under the bridge. Pereiro finally got the win in stage 16. And he's earned it as much as anyone.

*****************************

Wednesday's stage 17 is almost flat as a pancake. McEwen, Hushovd, O'Grady. Let's get it on!
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