TdF Day 16 – Stage 13 to Plateau de Beille
Versus has been touting today’s climb to Plateau de Beille as the King Maker stage… The Tour has only finished here four times before, but in each case the winner on the Plateau ended up as the winner in Paris – an impressive history – especially when you consider the four winners; Marco Pantani, Lance Armstrong (x2) and Alberto Contador. Each time the winner was either solo or in a 2-up sprint.
Today was Jelle Vanendert ‘s first win as a professional – in his first Tour de France. And now his first leaders jersey with the polka-dots. After Thursday’s impressive climbing escape to Luz-Ardiden Vanenert confirmed his climbing pedigree today by taking off early and holding off and stop and go peloton and a hard charging Sammy Sanchez.
At this point Sanchez has to be the guy who’s most disappointed by the time lost on Stage 1. His climbing has put himself back into podium potential… too bad he’s even worse at TTing then the Schleck bros.
Seems like the pecking order for the climbing stages has been established – the top guys look like Sanchez and A.Schleck. Next up Basso, Cadel, F.Schleck , Vandendert, and a surprisingly resilient Thomas Voeckler. Contador was able to hang on today – but nothing he did today makes him look like a Tour winner right now. He seemed to be relieved every time the pace dropped and didn’t ever go close to the front.
Eventually more people are going to start asking – Can Tommy V keep the jersey? And if not – can he finish on the podium? His climbing today showed he can not only dig-deep when he needs to, but actually keep up and help control the race. His Europcar team is doing a great job of controlling the race when needed. Six days in Yellow – and for sure tomorrow he’ll keep it. The Europcar stuffed Lion collection is going to look just like Thor’s.
Watch the final km again of today’s stage. When A. Schleck attacks it’s Voeckler who is the first to jump to try and catch him. Those 3 to 5 seconds don’t make a difference in today’s Yellow Jersey fight – Tommy is starting to believe he can keep it – and he’s going to fight for every second now. On Thursday he was defending to keep it for a few more days. Now he’s thinking of keeping it. Period. Watch for a shift in the way he talks to the press. He’s going to talk about “defending his position” as opposed to “keeping the jersey as long as I can”.
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I heard Phil Liggett ask today if Voeckler can keep the jersey. You know the “peloton a deux vitesse” as the French have been complaining about for years (peloton at two speeds) is over if Tommy V is touted as a Tour contender and his rhyming buddy Tommy D is in the top 10 at the Tour. Comparing today’s results to the 2007 or 2004 ascent of Plateau de Bielle will be an interesting exercise. Someone will no doubt calculate VAM and tell us all it’s 7 to 10% lower – now we’re asked to draw our own conclusions. Was Basso 10% better 7 years ago then he is today? The other dramatic change from years past is the lack on sustained attacks. None of the big leaders could get more then a five second gap without getting pulled back and none of them could sustain an attacking effort for more then a minute or two max. Basso and A.Schleck made the best attacks and I thought one of them would stick – but after about two minutes of sustained effort they got caught each time. I’d love to see what those Watt / Kg numbers look like.
Andy's big final km attack only got him 2sec over Cadel, Contador, Basso & Voeckler
Notes
- Jens Voigt is like a honey badger – he doesn’t care – he just keeps drilling it. “Hey Tour I know I crashed, get away from me while I adjust my earpiece”
- What’s Johan thinking these days when Haimar Zubledia is his GC leader now. Wow – that’s a deja-vu. In 2004 when Lance won on Plateau de Beille Zubeldia dropped out with knee problems. In 2007 he was 3'45" behind Alberto. Today he was 3'01" down on the Andy.
- Lots of questioning of Leopard-Trek tactics of going to the front on the second to last climb – they burn their boys out early – but also put everyone else on the defensive. Even when Contador had 2 or 3 teammates late in the race left they couldn’t do much for him.
- Surprised that Hummer was able to get Cadel on camera – he sounded dazed – but everyday he doesn’t get dropped by the Schleck^2 he’s got to get more confident.
- Glad to see Sylvain Chavanel on the attack today – his injuries may prevent him from winning a stage this year – but his energy is giving credit to his tri-color jersey.
- It was nice to see David Millar in the break – but why is it everytime he gets anywhere near the front of the race every Brit commenting on TV or Twitter acts like he’s going to win…
- FdJ has done a great job of getting into every break this year even if they probably won’t come away with a stage win. Compare them to AG2R or Saur-Sojasun – they don’t have a GC guy and they don’t have a sprinter. They better get a guy into a break or two.
- Andy Schleck is going to need more then 2 – 4 seconds per stage to beat Cadel Evans – if they keep riding like this in the Alps (where there are really only two stages to take time) Cadel will head into the final time trial in the driver’s seat.
- After half of the mountain stages are done the top XXX riders in the Best Young Rider competition are all French… again are we getting back to a peloton of “one speed” not two?
Tomorrow: 168km Limoux to Montpellier
Tomorrow is the last sprint stage for a while, so expect to see the three-way competition to set up the lead-out in the final 10-15km between HTC, Garmin-Cervelo and Omega-Pharma-Lotto. All three big sprinters Cavendish, Farrar & Greipel have won this Tour and all three think with the right lead-out they can win again. It’s going to be up to Omega and Cervelo to take control late and try to burn out the HTC leadout. If Cav hit’s 1k to go with two guys and 500m to get with Renshaw in front he’s almost unbeatable – if a combination of attacks and high speeds can eliminate the HTC train then it’s a fair fight.
Look for Omega to try a late attack to force HTC into chasing earlier and harder then they want to, and then Garmin to come to the front and try and control the last 3k. It’ll be a drag race to the line and I think now that they know how to beat Cav Omega can take this one out. Greipel would love to beat Cav again and tomorrow is his last chance. Cav won’t lose on the Champs if his team is still all-together for him.
Winner: Andre Greipel
Yellow: Thomas Voeckler
Green: Mark Cavendish
Polka-Dot: Jelle Vanendert
He's the darling of France again - now how about the podium?
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