HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 18: Annecy, 40.5km ITT
There’s a little breeze fluttering the trees in Annecy, it’s mild at 25 degrees but rain is forecast – chrono day. The thing about a Tour time trial is that the conditions I have just described might prevail for first starter, at 11:10, F des J’s Belorussian champion and lanterne rouge (now that Kenny has gone home) Yauheni Hutarovich.
But when Bert bumps that Trek down the ramp at 16:47, the conditions could be completely different.
Our game plan today is two fold; drive the course, behind Garmin sprinter, Tyler Farrar, then do a ‘before and after’ on the Big Guns.
It’s 12:40 am now; need to finish this after sleep.
Bon nuit.
Later…
A long but exciting day on Thursday – we did our following car ‘thing’ with Tyler Farrar and then spent all afternoon looking at how the big GC guys fared.
What’s not, is the running around it takes to get the precious “stee-kerr” for the windscreen that enables you to enter the hallowed start area, then follow your rider.
You run around daft, have all sorts of language hurdles to jump; then you meet the right guy, who speaks perfect English, sticks his hand in his pocket – ‘et voila!’
A part of the day I really enjoyed was getting to the start; to get there we had to drive the second part of the course – there’s so much joy, fun, expectation and sheer glad to be alivedness evident.
Lance; for sure he generates interest but for me the minders, the tweeting, the ‘spin’ against Alberto and then, on the day the Spaniard confirms his dominance, to announce his new team – it’s all against the grain.
But I’m 54 and grew up when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Bert’s dignity and professionalism are in marked contrast to LA’s tweeting, PR, and invideous remarks. Did you notice even Bruyneel doesn’t wear Astana gear? It’s all Livestrong teeshirts and polemics.
Alberto, on the other hand is a pro; as Philippe Brunel says in L’Equipe; “The Spaniard avoids the politics but his gestures are eloquent…
In other words, he talks with his pedals.
There’s a photo in L’Equipe which sums it up. Three Astanas warm up on the turbos for the test; one has a Livestrong thing on, one sports an anonymous vest, but only one wears an Astana top – Alberto.
Yes, if he does the ride of his life, tomorrow; he’s only nine seconds behind Lance, but in turn, he has Kloden just two seconds behind him, with climbing ace Frank Schleck just 23 seconds down.
The Tour and cycling makes it big on the back page of today’s AS, first Contador is in the good section with congratulated on his securing his victory by taking more time, then in the bad section we have the failure of Armstrong who lost time and fell off the podium and De Luca is also in the bad section with his positive for CERA at the Giro.
AS headline.
Also on the back page is an argument over why Contador stopped his attack on the Schleck brothers on the last climb yesterday, there is more about this on the inside pages.
AS says: “Heroica etapa que no gan Contador porque Bruyneel le frene”. So the reason he stopped was orders from above!
The attacks had dropped Wiggins, Armstrong and eventually Klöden, but it looks like the time loss of Lance was more important than a stage win or more time in the bank for Alberto?
Bruyneel is leaving Astana at the end of the year, maybe to set up the new “Team Armstrong” which will probably not include Contador, so….
Spanish paper AS does a great job of race coverage.
Are you happy with things before the time trial? Contador is asked; “now I have more time between me and Wiggins I have a little more tranquillity.
The time trial in Annecy is long and Klöden and Armstrong are specialists”. Have you won the Tour? “For nothing are the next two days the key, the time trial and Ventoux…I keep my feet on the ground”.
Other quotes: Sastre: “Attacking is my only option”
Nibali: “I collaborated with Lance in the final kilometres; I hope to gain some time in the time trial”:
The President of France, Sarkozy: “Contador is magnificent”.
Bradley Wiggins also thinks he will do well in the time trial; “I hope to recover my place on the podium in Annecy”.
Last bit of news; and if you saw Jens Voigt’s crash you won’t be surprised to hear that the doctor in the Grenoble hospital that treated the German said “the helmet saved his life”.
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.
Whether it's a great edition of the Gent Six Days or not, it's still quite an experience to walk up through the tunnel for the first time.
Especially if the Dernys are up on the track droning out their monotonous tune, there's the buzz of a thousand conversations, the lights, the throng, the smell of beer, the renners flashing around the bankings, the people piled high up to the roof in the corners - We love it !
Peter Schep / Wim Stroetinga win, Franco and Mouris second, Stam/Havik third - a result which everyone is pretty happy with. The Dutch winners are the classic Six Day combo - big, strong, mature, silky smooth Peter Schep and the younger, smaller, more erratic but rapid Stroetinga.
The other day we had the score down as 2:0 in the Bardiani v. Sky match – well, it’s now 3:0 as the versatile Stefano Pirazzi demonstrated the desire, desperation and grinta you need to be a Giro stage winner. As well as being a former Tirreno and Giro King of the Mountains, he’s been a medallist in the Italian TT Championships. This is his fifth full pro season – initially with Colnago and remaining with the team as it morphed into Bardiani.
Maybe it’s our fault? Yesterday we said that ‘barring Acts of God,’ Cav would win. We got it half right; there was an almighty ‘Act of God’ with South African champion Robbie Hunter bouncing around the road like a rubber doll and a whole clutch of riders biting the dust. As the director cut to close up and what was happening at the crash site, there was Cav sitting on the tar, stunned. He’s a tough wee soul – ''stoic is the word, I think. Abbeville.
It couldn't go on like that. Men can only 'death race' for so long and then they need a 'blaw.' Today, on the stage out of Chambery, they took the chance to lean on their shovels and left the minnows to grab the glory. I really didn't expect to see the finalé but when the box kindled up, there it was - with 12 K to go and a race average of 34 kph.
It was Kittel today. My son asked me today what the chances of Cav taking the win and the yellow jersey were; "95%" said I, confidently. But it’s that other 5% which makes it a bike race.
The bulk of the stage was a ‘paint drying’ job with the early break – which went in remarkably fuss free fashion - of Jerome Cousin (Europcar), Juan José Lobato (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Lars Boom (Belkin), Juan Antonio Flecha (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Cyril Lemoine (Sojasun) sitting up in the huff because they couldn’t get the gap; then the peloton doing the same to give the escapees some space and incentive to get back on the case.
Harry Hampson wasn’t a man that VeloVeritas knew personally but we knew of him from the many mentions of his name in the ‘Cycling Weekly’ in the days when the magazine was the main reporting organ for cycle sport in the UK. And when Mr. Hampson died recently we were struck by the outpouring of emotion from the men he mentored/coached, ‘back in the day.’
It’s a while since VeloVeritas last spoke to Steve Skuse; Vik and I used to bump into him on our trips to the kermises. Steve got in touch the other day to tell us about another young man he’s looking after and who’s pulled off that difficult trick of winning a kermis in the Flatlands. And the better news is, he qualifies to ride for Bonnie Scotland... Jez McCann is the man; 19 years-old, raised in Gravesend, riding for Richardsons-Trek.
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