It had to be an early start, today for Le Grand-Bornand. To get down to the Bourg-Saint-Maurice start, we had to drive against a section of race route and decided to get away early to beat the closures.
By the back of 08:00 we were clear of the worrisome section; we grabbed a coffee then made our way down to the start.
Bright sunshine, pretty girls, a free breakfast and a meet with a yeti – what more could you want?
In the village we had a chat with ex-British pro road race champion, Tim Harris who drives the VIP’s on the Tour; **** hotels, a helicopter trip over the race, champagne picnics – a snip at 3,000 per head.
Schleck senior wins, a present from Bert. That’s one you him, Frankie.
And that’s gone midnight, again.
Bon nuit.
Tour 09 Stage 17 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 17 Profile.
* * *
Al Hamilton
Mikel Astarloza’s win yesterday put him on the front and the back page of today’s AS. “El gran Astarloza” is his headline and “Victory for the Euskaltel leader. Andy Schleck attacks Contador”. Not that it did the young Schleck much good!
Astarloza can be proud with himself after today.
The Basque, Mikel Astarloza is a bit hard on himself in his interview as his self description is of a “pathetic team leader”. He isn’t big headed or charismatic, but he can win races. At the moment he is in 11th position at 4 minutes and 38 seconds, good, but not great!
Contador: “Ya hablo en carrera con Lance”. The relations between the leaders of the Astana team seem to be improving as Alberto admits to speaking with Lance during the race. Also in the Astana news is that team manager Johan Bruyneel will be leaving at the end of the year; “I’m turning a page in my career”.
Lance had a pop at Bert today for attacking and putting Kloden out the back – since when did LA care about a teammate on the podium? Anything to have a go at AC.
All this along with the announcement of a new team by “The Boss” Lance Armstrong on Twitter the other day, all looks too pre-ordained. Where does this leave Alberto Contador? He still has 1 year left of his contract with Astana.
The crash of Saxo Banks, Jens Voigt gets good coverage with five photos, the retransmission of the Tour on Spanish TV last night showed the crash in all its bloody details. So far we know he has a broken cheek and collar bone and will be in hospital for a while. Marchante also crashed into his Cervelo team car yesterday, but he did finish.
Spanish TV will be showing today’s (Wednesday) stage live on the normal channel (La 2) and on the sports channel (Teledeporte). Co-presenters; de Andrés and Delgado will be doing more than 5 hours transmission again.
They are very happy with their work and receive many e-mails on facebook. “Many chicas [women] are very interested in cycling” they say, and at the stage finishes Pedro still gets shouted at by the fans “:¡Perico, Perico!”
That’s it for today; let’s hope there is more action to talk about before the finish?
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.
"Ja!" Screams Marcel Kittel (Etixx) as he leaps back to his feet and cuddles his soigneur after sitting on the tarmac with his head buried in his elbows to await the verdict from the photo finish technicians - he has every right to be chuffed, he’s just won Stage Four of the 2016 Tour de France. In theory it should have been one for the smaller sprinters - 600 metres @ 4% to the finish line - not a beast like Kittel but he was the man producing most watts.
Another great stage yesterday - Peraud takes a giant step, Rafal Majka confirms, Nibali consolidates, Konig stumbles... After breakfast we had a wander round Lourdes; it's one weird place - but I said that yesterday. We decided against the finish col to Saint-Lary Pla d'Adet - dead end climbs are nitemares to get off after the stage and we figured that the action might just start on the Col de Val Louron-Azet. We got up there in plenty time, claimed our spot and waited 'til it was time to grab our caravan swag.
I braved the tourists and human statues up on Edinburgh’s High Street to see if I could get Monday’s L’Equipe in the International Newsagents – it’s the one for all the good Tour stats. But alas, no dice – I had to settle for Sunday’s Observer and Monday’s Guardian where it’s wall to wall Christopher and Sky.
Nacer Bouhanni will not take part in the 2016 Tour de France. He suffered an attack at the team hotel on the night before the French national championship road race, requiring an emergency 4-stiches intervention.
Alex Kristoff wins in the town which used to be the heart of the French bicycle industry – St. Etienne. We also managed to get our paws on L'Équipe, again - for the day of Nibali's second coup, on La Planche des Belles Filles. The front page features a satisfied Nibali, a devastated Contador as well as Bardet and Pinot - at last French guys with realistic GC ambitions. C'est bon!
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...
Hump Day & Humdrum. As the physio on team Garmin-Transitions, all I can say is this is a dangerous sport. All things considered, 3rd place for Tyler yesterday was a fantastic effort by the whole team, with Dave Zabriskie helping to control the break for most of the day.
It's different here; the butcher asks you how Keisse is doing in the six and the local paper has Iljo in full colour, on the cover. In the same paper - De Gentenaar - which is a local 'rag,' there's a two page guide to track racing and two pages of stats on the 2009 season.
In the first part of our interview with Australian ace Don Allan we discussed his road career, for the second part we talk about his 107 Six Day starts - that's 642 days on the boards; 92 weeks.
Steve Cummings has finally landed a stage race win, the Tour of the Mediterranean – he won the stage 3b time trial to go top on GC then hung on to his lead on the nasty slopes of Mont Faron to beat AG2R hard man, Jean-Christophe Peraud to the overall honours. We spoke to him a day or two after his triumph.
Another one for Jack Carlin. Major championship silver medal, that is, this time in the UCI World Team Sprint Championship in Berlin. We caught up with him as he prepared to take a wee break from training and racing before the big build up for the competition which really matters to Team GB: the Olympic Games in Tokyo come late July/early August.
The ‘Pocket Rocket’ they called him; British Junior Road Champion, twice winner of the season-long Star Trophy, winner of just about every major amateur race in Britain and twice British Professional Road race Champion – the Isle of Man’s own Mr. Steve Joughin. High time we caught up with him.
You must be logged in to post a comment.