HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 9: Saint-Gaudens > Tarbes, 160.5km
As Jean Rene Bernadeau kissed Pierrick Fedrigo after the sharp featured former French champion took the second Bbox stage of the 2009 Tour, from Saint-Gaudens to Tarbes. I think what he said was; “well done son, we’ve all got a job, next year!”
Again, I only saw the finale; maybe not a bad thing, I have a tendency to nod off during long, uninteresting breakaway stages.
I caught the last 20k or so, and it was uncertain as to whether they would stay away; if it had been a flat stage and Columbia had been in full effect, then Fedrigo and Pellizotti would have been swamped.
Pierrick Fedrigo takes Bbox’s second stage of the Tour.
But despite the best efforts of Caisse D’Epargne — with a little help from Rabobank — the two fugitives held out.
Oscar easily wins the sprint for third.
Oscar Freire must have been frustrated, he took third easily; it could perhaps have been the win if Denis Menchov had set the cruise control a little earlier — he has all day tomorrow to recover, after all — and Oscar is certainly the Orangemen’s best chance for Tour glory.
The last 10k was good bike racing, a frantic bunch, in a long, long line against the two foxes — and like Charly Wegelius says; “it’s good for the dogs not to catch them, sometimes.”
Pello did all he could, he’s no sprinter but he made the right move, diving into the right hander first and making the Frenchman come the long way round — he could have done little more.
Pello took the Combativity award as small compensation for second place.
It’s not been a bad Tour at all for the Motherland; but what I’m really hoping for is a Moncoutie win in the Alps — Viktor will just love that!
And there’s the email from Brandt, who sponsor the combativity (le coureur qui a anime la course avec panache) prize; Pello today; that’s fair and he’ll be a boy to watch on the Ventoux.
Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale) is rising to the challenge of riding in yellow.
Nocentini takes the yellow jersey into the rest day — shows you what I know!
Ciao, ciao!
Tour 09 Stage 9 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 9 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
“El león del Tour“.
The lion of the Tour is the headline today in AS and Luis León Sánchez makes (as you might expect) the front and the back pages.
Luis León won the stage in to Aurillac in last year’s Tour, now a year later he made the assault on Saint Girons for his home: “Va por mi hermano, mis padres y los compañeros” – For my brother, my parents and my friends, and he adds “for Alejandro Valverde”.
El león del Tour.
His brother was a famous footballer, Pedro Leon; he played for Valladolid, but tragically died in 2005 in a fatal quad bike accident. Who does he think will win the Tour? “Contador!”
Contador has been selected for more attention than just by the fans; he has been tested three times in two days. “Análisis ‘selectivos’ para el madrileño (Contador) y Armstrong.” First on Friday, then in the morning at the Novotel of Andorra la Vella and then at the finish line there was a Chaperon from the UCI.
Contador goes about the parts of his profession that are less pleasant quietly and with dignity. Lance twitters.
Armstrong sent a message on twitter saying he was at another anti-doping test too.
After 90 kilometres on the stage to Saint Girons, 2006 Tour winner, Oscar Pereiro called a halt and abandoned.
The Galician said his body had had enough; his pulse would not go over 160 when normally it would be 185 bpm. Most of last year he was recovering from his crash in the 2008 Tour and had raced 52 days before reappearing in this Tour.
“El Tourmalet es la gran esperanza ‘anti-Astana’” – Andy Schleck predicts attacks as does Evans.
AS’ front page today.
The problem is that the Tourmalet comes a long way from the finish in Tarbes, 60 kilometres to be exact, so this will make it very difficult to stay away from a chasing Astana team. Should be exciting stuff anyway!
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
Yorkshire has a new cycling hero – and Harry Tanfield can’t quite believe it. Never before had a local won a Tour de Yorkshire stage but with one superb breakaway and one big push to the line, this 23-year-old from Great Ayton had the Doncaster crowd rocking, to take stage 1 of the Tour de Yorkshire 2018.
Peter Sagan’s quote of the day? “What is pressure?” As team mate Marcus Burghardt said; “he was such power in his head and that’s what makes the difference.” Despite pulling his foot in the sprint at the top of that nasty finish climb he was just too quick for everyone...
On a day when we watched hard men like Gran Piemonte winner, Matt Walls and Tro Bro victor, Connor Swift crack before our very eyes it was reigning champion, Ben Swift who extended his tenure in that lovely jersey from 2019 through 2020 and 2021 into at least June 2022.
After yesterday's baptism of fire in 35 degrees heat, the Scots boys were more at home today in the Tour Nivernais Morvan; the temperature had fallen to 15 degrees and it was pouring with rain.
Monday passed in a trice - a motorway is motorway and a Formule 1 hotel is a Formule 1 hotel. Now it's 14:15pm on Tuesday and hard to imagine the building site I'm sitting in the midst of will be hosting the Zürich Four Days 2011 in a little over 24 hours. But it has to - first and foremost, the Sixes are a business proposition.
Today is the first “High” mountaintop finish. Stage 7 was considered “Medium”, and looking at the pictures of the stage today, one can see why!
This is a short, mountainous stage that may well see fireworks from the big hitters. When considering the terrain, there isn’t really any respite throughout the stage, and it is a virtual guarantee that Vincenzo Nibali, Jurgen van den Broeck and Cadel Evans will equally attempting to make things difficult for the SKY super team.
The Sandy Wallace Cycles team of Alan Dow, Ian Black and Joe Wilson put half a minute into the boys from Aberdeen in the shape of the Granite City RT to take the honours in the Musselburgh RC 3-Up Time Trial.
1st Chance For A Break. The Mountains have been entered and the big show has begun in earnest! Looking at this stage, one would predict it to be a day pencilled in by breakaway specialists such as Simon Gerrans, Thomas Voeckler or Thor Hushovd (had he have been racing) who have already let a good whack of time go from the race leader. In this way they’re non-threatening when they do get in a break and thus aren’t chased down.
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