Tag: Le Tour de France

Visé"Tomorrow is a sprinters’ stage – Lotto showed real motivation today, GreenEDGE look good too. But love Cav or loathe him, he’s special." . . . was what we said yesterday. Lotto were motivated and GreenEDGE were good – but Cav was better.

Representatives from British Cycling, UK Sport and EventScotland visited the Belgian city of Liège this weekend for the Grand Depart of the 2012 Tour de France. With a proposal for the opening stages of the 2017 event being developed, the British partnership experienced the spectacular the Tour first-hand.

Today is the first out and out sprint stage. Today we find out if the form Gossy and Greipel showed yesterday relative to Mark Cavendish was true, or if Cav was holding back a little. (For those out of the loop, Greipel showed that his train is beautifully organised and disciplined; and Gossy showed that he can bop a win over the great one when at the Tour.)

Early Shows Of Form... The “Mini Liege” Stage has been done and dusted, and the next big thing in bike racing (if he isn’t already there) has shown he will be competitive at the very highest level. Peter Sagan entered the stage as one of the favourites for the win, and was flawless in executing his victory. He is not as quick as Cav (and never will be) but can contest so many more finales as he is able to stay with the leaders on tougher stages.

As Dave said during the Tour de Suisse; ‘Sagan’s winning just for fun.’ And that’s how it looked today. It’s not just his speed in the sprint and up the inclines; it’s his ability to read the race - he didn’t waste himself by marking Chava but was on Cancellara like a ferret. Add to that the confidence which enable him to ignore Capo Cancellara’s flicked elbows and switches and you have all the ingredients off the most exciting prospect cycling has seen since V de B.

The first road stage has started! Touted as a mini Liege Bastogne Liege, the course covers many of the same roads as the race known as La Doyenne, one of the single day Classics known as a Monument. The last time these roads were tackled at the Tour was in 2009, easily the worst working day of my Sports Physio career - I was working for the Garmin team at the time.

All of the tension has finally left the peloton as they’ve finally started the race. Haha!! Or more accurately, the early tension of anticipation has been replaced by the tension to gain time/hold place/maintain position/get in the break/follow the right wheel/avoid the crashes/etc etc etc! Fabian Cancellara did what he does so well.

It's here. Le Tour de France 2012 Prologue. The endless analysis is finally over, there's rubber on tarmac, folks hanging over barriers and commentators getting their facts wrong, already.

The Tour Prologue is one of the most High Speed & High Stakes stages in bike racing. 6.4km of maximum effort, with the winner being gifted with the Yellow Jersey at the end of the day. The value placed upon this for teams, sponsors and the riders themselves is truly enormous.

Like it or not, the sport of professional cycle racing is largely defined by one race – the Tour de France. To aficionados the Primavera, Ronde, Hell of the North and Classic of the Falling Leaves are eagerly awaited then devoured and endlessly analysed. But mention any of these races to the ‘man in the street’ and you’ll be met with a blank stare. The Giro and Vuelta will elicit a similar response - Paris-Nice? Forget it. But tell a ‘lay person’ you’re going to the Tour de France and in response you’ll get; ‘Lance, Cav, yellow jersey’ – and ‘drugs,’ naturally.

Le Tour 2012 is a day away! On paper it is going to be a race between Wiggo and Cadel, and it is hard to see anyone else good enough to match these two men. As has been noted everywhere, and ad nauseam, this is a Tour with over 90km of time trialling. Considering the miserable time trialling talents of the gun climbers in the race, particularly when compared to how good Cadel and Wiggo are at climbing, the race for third may well end up being a separate battle of the also-rans behind the Wiggins-Evans showdown.

Daryl Impey is the man who suffered a horrific crash in the final metres of the Presidential Tour of Turkey in 2009, with the yellow jersey on his back - when Theo Boss decided that the South African might like to make a close inspection of the crash barriers.

Last July, Jérémy Roy (FDJ) was becoming well known to followers of the Tour de France, his attacking style gathering him lots of attention and admiration in this, his fourth participation, despite the big win in the biggest race eluding him thus far. In his ninth year as a Pro, but not a regular winner, Jérémy was one of the heroes of Friday's Stage 12 from Cugneaux to Luz Ardiden, having been in the break of six riders which escaped soon after the start and remained in front most of the day.

We're in the Dröme Department, and it may be a notional Tour de France Rest Day, but all that really means is that there's no racing today - despite what Ned Boulting might tell you about spending time in launderettes, almost everyone still has lots to do. For example, the riders - for whom the rest day is most important, still have to attend press conferences, talk to daft journalists and answer "f****ing stupid questions"(copyright Mark Cavendish), the team mechanics take advantage of the extra time to prep the time trial bikes for next Saturday's chrono, and so on.

Le Tour de France 2011 and We couldn't get out of Andorra quickly enough. Before 08:00 we got the lift down from the 5th floor of the hotel, to be greeted by great plumes of cigarette smoke belching out of the breakfast area. Last night's determination to "make a fuss about the lack of advertised weefee" evaporated, as we just wanted to put distance between us and this horrid place as fast as possible.

Andorra, Pyrénées. Everything about it seems wrong. For a start, it's an independent tax haven/principality sitting at the top of a Pyrenean mountain, an hour's drive over sweeping twisty hairpinned roads from the nearest town. Some pals said to me that when they went to Andorra for skiing, they thought it was OK. Perhaps the snow covered all the cracks, but I'm not sure how the inhabitants' attitudes could be masked; almost - no, everyone - we met was unpleasant, in attitude and manner.

A day of two parts. Figuring today's stage would maybe see good racing, but not GC changing action, we decided to head over to Lourdes for another wee shot of the Village Depart, get a bit of breakfast, chase soundbites from the folk on the race and watch the depart. Walking into the Village we got talking to a young American - bet you're singing that now - who was on assignment from the Wall Street Journal...

Looking for a nice meal in Lourdes with great service? That's too bad, you'll struggle to find it! We were lucky to come across the only half-civil waiter in the town after landing in the third restaurant of the night, after being variously ignored by staff and stared at at by local idiots in the first two places we tried. Today's plan: head up to the start at Cugnaux and get a Village Depart breakfast, then drive on race route until the famous climb of the Tourmalet, where we pitched up around 3km from the top.

It was a very warm evening yesterday, and we wandered back round to the hotel last night after our dinner in the middle of a typical Pyrenean thunderstorm - huge bolts of lightning searing across the sky and claps of thunder which lingered and reverberated for what seemed like 20 seconds. In the space of 5 minutes, the roads were flooded. We went to sleep in our "pod" room to the sound of pouring rain, and woke up to the same - only worse. It wasn't a nice day to be outside, let alone reporting on, or riding, a bike race.

Yesterday we arrived in Rodez as planned, picked up the hire car without any bother, and got ourselves, eventually, after getting lost a couple of times, to the hotel - one of these typical French 'pod' rooms, but it's okay with it's bunk beds and little shower room / toilet. A drive up to the Permanence, aka the Press Headquarters, to pick up our race accreditation, and we'd be all set for a pretty cruisy Rest Day. Only, the Permanence happened to be over two hours drive away, and once there, we found that only Ed's 'creds' were ready - mine hadn't been "approved by Julia" (the head ASO cred issuer).