HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 13: Vittel > Colmar, 200km
Bonjour from Colmar! A couple of unrelated items first: I just noticed that the Rolex ad on the back of yesterday’s L’Equipe is a picture of Turnberry, with Ailsa Craig in the background – ah! the Auld Country!
The footwear of choice for Tour journos this year is ‘basies,’ as we used to call them – baseball boots; I’m gonna stick with my deck shoes.
Vosges Matin, the local paper, has a Tour pull out, all the riders, all the stages and with a great pic of Sorensen, winning in Vittel, yesterday – the French do embrace the race.
Right, we’ll try some joined-up stuff.
The smell of the bakeries in Vittel this morning was wonderful, as Martin and I ambled round to find the team buses.
But first, we took 10 minutes to watch the publicity caravan roll out; you would have to be really cynical not to manage a smile for the caravan.
We had four goals today: interview Tyler Farrar; get the DS’s opinions on what could and should have been a turning point in the race; watch the race live on the last climb and give Charly Wegelius his wedding present, a bottle of Drambuie.
Tyler is a joy to talk to, polite, lucid and insightful – that was an easy job.
We caught up with Charly, he larked about, trying to put the Drambuie in his Canyon’s bottle cage – the TV crews appeared, as if by magic; “do that again, Charly!”
Talking to the DS’s was cool, especially Konyshev – a legend.
He was second to Lemond in the Worlds, 20 years ago and still winning pro races up until a year or two ago.
A “baroudeur’s” stage, tomorrow – maybe a sprinters; but that depends how mad Cav is about Hushovd snaffling the green jersey.
OK, time to watch le Tour on German Eurosport – why German?
Tell you tomorrow.
Ciao, ciao.
Tour 09 Stage 13 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 13 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
“Batalla en los Vosgos”
I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of AS this morning so had to make do with Marca.
They lead with today’s battle in the Vosges mountains; there are many riders who say they will be attacking on the roads to Colmar. Alberto Contador is expecting attacks, but said it was up to the others, he would be waiting.
Martin and Ed think they might have been at the wrong race, only seeing a few boys battling today, and lots of laughing and chatting as the three big groups went past on the last climb, the Firstplan.
The big problem for all the riders could be the weather as “tormentas, frio y viento” (heavy rain, cold and wind) has been predicted for the stage.
Armstrong is saying “it could be a shit stage with many difficulties, lots of attacks from rivals and a crisis in my team on the final climb. We will have to analyse the situations as they arise”.
“Es una de las etapas más duras y decisivas del Tour” (this is one of the hardest and decisive stages of the Tour) said Giovanni Lombardi, the manager of the Schlecks.
The Devil gets his photo right in the centre of the report, which shows there wasn’t much to say about yesterday’s stage to Vittel. “Pellizotti, a bone for Egoi” refers to the chase for mountains points which enlivened the breakaway as Marca puts it, “making a beautiful pulse in the hills”, but the quote of the day has to be the jump of Nicki Sörensen, “like a cat out of water”.
Banzai!
“’Banzai’ hacia Paris”. Historic, two Japanese riders might finish the Tour for the first time ever! Tomoharu Masuda, producer of J-Sport, the TV channel that retransmits the Tour in Japan says “there are many young road cyclists in Japan”.
“Contador no quiere ‘gorilas’” Alberto does not agree to Lance having three “gorilas” bodyguards with him. The madrileño (Contador) is simply a cyclist, not a person of fiction or a Hollywood artist.
They do keep picking away at each other, do these “teammates”.
So that’s today’s news through the eyes of Spanish sports daily; Marca.
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.
It's one to bore the grandchildren with - the day you were right there when Nibali joined the Greats on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. 'Epic' doesn't do it justice; there was a full fledged blizzard raging for the finale - it was as if the Giro organisers had tee-ed it up. But it wasn't just Vincenzo who deserves the plaudits, every finisher down to last man home, Sacha Modolo deserves huge respect. We drove race route and the raging melt waters on the way up the valleys gave a clue as to what was coming.
I forgot to say last night, for the first time in this Tour, I got a prediction right. I chose Casar out of the four man break, you could see it in his eyes, he wanted it more than any of the others. There's a great picture of him on the front cover of L'Equipe today - it's all there in his face, determination and pride; "maybe the other French guys can't win a stage, but I sure as hell can!" Cafè au lait (have you noticed that Mertin has shown me how to get accents above the letters now?) and a Cognac, nine euros!?! "Eef you cannot steeff les touristes, then oo' can you steeff, hien?" Still, it was a good coffee, a grande measure of cognac and the toilets were free of Lasa Fever.
Dave and I saw our first Six Day in 1973, the Skol sponsored London Six Day - Sercu, Pijnen, Duyndam, Van Lancker . . .
This is Callum's first trip to the Kuipke but Stuart's umpteenth. The Adoma has been our base for years - it's a great jump off for Het Nieuwsblad, Gent-Wevelgem and the Koksijde 'cross.
The Face Partnership, the guys behind the Revolution Series on the track, brought an evening of exciting, all-category and professional racing to Edinburgh last night, in the shape of their successful Nocturne format.
In the next day's stage four, Manning did indeed go up the road. Third place on the stage was the reward for his efforts, behind Mark Cavendish (GB and T-Mobile) and the winner, crafty Frederik Willems (Belgium & Chocolade Jacques). Tour of Britain 2006.
On the track Ollie Wood has been a consistent top performer with national team pursuit and scratch titles to his name as a junior in 2014. In 2015 he again was in the winning team at national level and added the European U23 team pursuit title. Last year he was on the European podium in both the U23 and Elite team pursuit competitions – bronze on both occasions. And this season saw gold in the Manchester World Cup team pursuit. We caught up with the now 22 year-old – his birthday was the week after the Gent Six Day finished – to discuss his 2017 season and his plans for 2018 and beyond.
On a grey, damp but mild and fast Sunday morning on the roads around Blairdrummond near Stirling, Dooleys' Ian Grant added the '25' title to the '50' with a fine 52:26; besting Sandy Wallace's Silas Goldsworthy - whose fight back over the closing miles hauled back a 17 second deficit on Grant down to six at the line.
Last year's '50' champion Alan Thomson, took another medal for Sandy Wallace with bronze in 53:09.
The event was not without controversy, however.
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.
We humbly ask for your help to support our dear friend and beloved colleague Ed Hood. Ed suffered a devastating stroke in February last year and faces an uncertain future.
As a result of the stroke, Ed has lost his ability to speak, and to read, and has lost movement on the right side of his body. He’s working with speech and physical therapists on rehabilitation but all strokes are different and each patient responds differently, so unfortunately recovery is one day at a time.
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