TdF Day 13 – Stage 11
Mark Cavendish and his HTC team could not have had a better set up then they did today. HTC delivered Cav through 1k to go with Renshaw sitting on the Sky train. At 500m Renshaw went to the front and the Manx Missile came off his wheel perfect and delivered his third win of the Tour. Yesterday showed that Cavendish can be beat but it takes a perfect race to do it. Check out the final KM here:
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Today was the last sprinters stage for a while and the boys made sure the finish delivered – the 167.5km were covered at an average of 44.5 kph (27.8 mph). Great work today by the sprinters teams and by Europcar to keep the break in check. Thomas Voeckler has a great advantage that none of the breakaway riders were even close on GC so they didn’t have to work that hard – more of the pressure was on HTC, Lotto and Garmin to keep the break in check.
Notes:
- Finally an uneventful day for Contador – all the media could say about him was “Contador says his knee is getting better”.
- Lots more press about transfers – Thor and Gilbert to BMC was reported again today in a few places. That pretty much dooms any chance George Hincapie would have of one final attempt at Paris Roubax and says they are giving up on Ballan as well.
- BMC will have a lot of PR to clean up on after this year if Ballan is charged for doping by the Italians. Too many close calls this year.
- If Bob Stapleton is still talking about needing a sponsor this deep into the Tour it looks like he doesn’t have the offer he wants from HTC. This video on Cyclingnews looks like a advertisement for “Sponsor High Road”. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/video-stapleton-busy-seeking-sponsors
- Lots of chatter about what Michael Smith from ESPN said yesterday on his twitter… if you missed it here was his first tweet “For real, am I wrong for laughing at that Tour de France crash? Can't get over the driver speeding off as if he didn't know he hit someone!”
- If you want to comment to ESPN on his behavior here is the link: http://espn.go.com/espn/contact?lang=EN&country=united%20states
- Check out this sweet shirt that Stomach of Anger is selling – check here to get one: http://www.stomachofanger.com/
Tomorrow – Pyrenees start with a bang - 211km from Cugnaux to Luz-Ardiden
The first big mountain stage of 2011 has two of the biggest and most respected climbs – Col du Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden. This combo climb is most famous for Lance Armstrong’s crash on the final climb in 2003 as he was winning his 5th Tour and being chased all the way by Jan Ullrich.
But it’s this stage from 1990 that offers one of the best mountain stages – how often does the yellow jersey attack from 80k out? Check out who wins this stage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAjj5137yKM&playnext=1&list=PL9477779599014775
Tomorrow will it be a repeat? With the current champion and a future champion taking the top 2 at the finish.
The stage should unfold predictably – with Johnny Hoogerland joining a break for the mountain points over the Cat 1 La Hourquette d’Ancizan – and then a number of attacks on the Tourmalet from guys 5 to 10 minutes down. The biggest question will be how the GC contenders react? Seems like the only way to beat Alberto Contador is to make him do ALL the chasing. He doesn’t have the team to shut down every attack – so he’ll have to be careful. But if a guy like Levi or Tom Danielson gets away on the Tourmalet will Leopard or BMC take any responsibility to chase him down? They shouldn’t. If they want to win the tour – they have to risk loosing it first. It’ll be a great game of poker tomorrow on the climb to Tourmalet and it’s going to be interesting to see who responds. Any team who pulls except Saxo between La Hourquette and the base of Luz-Ardiden is only helping Alberto.
Who’s going to win? The guy with the most to lose – I predict Alberto Contador will finally launch an un-followable attack – but only very very close to the top. Andy, Frank, Cadel, Klodi, etc… shouldn’t be that far behind him. He’s a smart rider with a smart DS – tomorrow isn’t the day to take big time – just the day to make a statement on his form.
It’s a tough consistent final 5k on the climb – a steep ramp at 9% at 4km to go should be the launch pad for Contador and that will cause Cadel a tiny bit of trouble. I think he’ll get gapped slightly on the run in to the finish – leaving the top Leopard Trek rider in yellow. Unfortunately for Andy that’s FRANK!!!
Winner: Alberto Contador
Yellow: Frank Schleck
Green: Mark Cavendish
Points: Alberto Contador
Will we get this on Friday??
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