We left Bourgoin-Jallieu this morning, but first a quick run through some of the teams’ performances; Cervélo: their Tour has been a good one, Haussler and Hushovd have won stages and Thor has made himself a whole load of new fans by the way he has ridden in pursuit of green.
Astana: their Tour has been marvellous – even better than that if you go on the “no such thing as bad publicity principle.”
Saxo: have had a good Tour thru Fabian, Sorensen and the Schlecks – it could get better; in my memory, no brothers have ever shared a Tour podium – and that’s possible.
Garmin: haven’t won a stage, but they’ve made the headlines with Bradley; not to mention Farrar and Millar.
Liquigas: Pello in polka dots and Nibali top ten, enough said.
Euskaltel: a stage win and Astarloza in the top ten; probably more than they had hoped for.
Not being wise after the event, but we could see that it might well be together at the foot of the last climb.
The first 50 or 60 K were perfect for a break to ‘stick’ but then there were long, open stretches where it could be hunted down.
Cav makes it five – an amazing young man.
Cav: there’s nothing else to say, except; “the best sprinter in the world.”
Baroudeur stage? But nobody told Cav!
Tour 09 Stage 19 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 19 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
There is only one story today and that is how Contador won the time trial and put more time between him and everyone else.
Alberto Contador had the whole of the front page of AS and took over the first eight pages, pushing football towards the back, something that doesn’t happen very often!
“GALÃCTICO CONTADOR wins the time trial in spite of the boycott of his team; Bruyneel followed Armstrong and his (Contador’s) radio was broken.”
Now this is a play on words in that Armstrong has a new team and sponsor (Radioshack) and Bruyneel will be going with him, but the team manager was in the following car of the American and not the race leader!
The front cover of AS today of course celebrates Bert’s outstanding time trial.
Quotes from the riders:
Contador: “It’s an honour and I’m proud to be compared to Indurain. It’s disproportionate to compare me to Merckx, I don’t have his level of victories”.
Wiggins: “I gave all I had”.
Klöden: “I was near the podium”.
Frank Schleck: “On Ventoux there will be war”.
Andy Schleck: “I want my brother to be third”.
Astarloza: “I want to be in the top-ten”.
Cancellara: “I can’t win every time”.
Bert doesn’t mind being compared to Indurain.
In Alberto’s village of Pinto the Town Hall had a special live showing of the time trial in the Cultural Centre. “Pinto animo al grito de “¡Armstrong, vete ya!” which translates to “Pinto (Home town of Contador) joins in with the cry “Armstrong, go now!”
Johan Bruyneel following Armstrong and not the yellow jersey in the time trial also did not go down well with the Spanish press. Contador had second in charge; Gallopin and Ekimov behind him in the team car. All this after talk of Bruyneel stopping the attack of Contador’s the other day on Le Colomiere. Armstrong and Bruyneel are off to Radioshack and Alberto isn’t in their plans.
Greg Lemond has been going on about Contador’s performance not being what it should be, watts out-put etc. This based on the calculations of an ex-doctor at Festina, I’ll say no more, as Armstrong said the other day “I’ll bite my tongue on the subject!”
So as the Tour organisers wanted, it looks like there will be action tomorrow on Mont Ventoux, my money is on Alberto!
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.
A Hard "Easy" Day. Yesterday was always going to be the day that the breakaway succeeded. The profile of the course and the stages on the days either side of it meant that neither the GC nor the sprinter teams would be interested. It wasn’t hard enough to separate the GC lads, but wasn’t easy enough for the sprinters to make it to the finish with the main bunch.
Sprinter stages - they almost have you feeling sorry for Carlton. When we settled down in our mini-market/café with it's big screen and fridge full of cool beer we were quite prepared to sit and wait on Kittel obliterating everyone again after the usual boring run-in. But Big Bora Pole, Maciej Bodnar, AKA 'The Bison' - in his Cannondale days he had a great Polish bison air brush job on his top tube - had other ideas; jumping his doomed breakaway companions and heading off on a solo epic which only ended in sight of the line...
Stage 5 is a guaranteed Traditional Bunch Kick. It is in the mold of the traditional early week flat stages of the Tour from years gone by. It is a 197km shot across the northeast of France, coincidentally passing very close to where the Australian WW1 cemetery at Villers-Brettoneux is located. A very moving place.
The strangest stage of the whole race from the point of view of the staff is the finale into Paris. Our team base is in northern Spain, and so all non-essential equipment went from Bordeaux back to Spain (rather than go to Spain from Bordeaux via Paris — a 1200km detour). Thus we were truckless (or untrucked?) for the only time in the race. Very Tardy.
We were spoiled at Strasbourg those first two days of Le Tour de France 2006 with the hotel just a couple of minutes from the press room and the action all within easy reach until the start on Monday. The driving is a killer now en route Saint-Quentin, not just because it’s boring and tiring but because of the time you waste. If I do a Grand Tour again, I’ll definitely organise a driver so as I can write as I travel.
It looked like a straight Arnaud Demare (FDJ & France) v. Andre Greipel (Lotto & Germany) shoot out in Troyes but Marcel Kittel (QuickStep & Germany), over on the bright side of the road, was way too quick for them both; Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data & Norway) hit out long and produced a good performance given he was stranded at the front so early, only being swamped late as Demare slid like an eel between the Norwegian and the barriers.
Vik's latest nod to us is regarding an Englishman, Douglas Dewey. Douglas won the British U23 time trial championships last season, but the other week he pulled off a major win in Belgium-Gent Staden, the first major amateur classic of the year.
Them sprinters are big guys-I passed them in the tunnel tonight, they looked cool, cocky, stylish. The public here love the sprinters; at intro time, they actually get their big build up from Daniel Mangeas after the Six Day riders. Bauge did a standstill for more than half-an-hour, in Gent there would be bricks getting lobbed at him, but in Grenoble-they love it.
The first Women's Tour of Scotland had some great racing, a wonderful parcours and somewhat mixed fortunes, suffering a cancelled stage and lots of rain and wind. Still, it's Scotland in August and not unexpected. Ed and Martin took in the action from the roadside.
We often hear about how the riders at the Tour de France study "the Roadbook" to learn the final kilometres of a particular stage, or to identify which stage may be "the one" to go for, but what exactly does the Tour de France Roadbook contain, who uses it, and how useful is it, really? Published by ASO each year a few weeks before the Prologue and in several languages, the Roadbook is also known as the race "bible".
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!”
Another sprint silver medal for Scottish track star, Jack Carlin. The man is making a habit of it. In the Worlds it was to big Australian power house Matt Glaetzer; this time, at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, it was to crafty Kiwi Sam Webster.
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