Day 7: Into the Mountains
There was a lot of talk about the grueling first week of this year’s Tour de France, and while Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel will surely tell you that today was more grueling than they would have liked, the GC riders did not have much trouble handling the hills or winds in Corsica or southern France. The only casualty so far who was a legitimate GC contender is the unfortunate Jurgen Van Den Broeck, who abandoned due to crash-related injuries. Ryder Hesjedal has a broken rib from a crash, but he hasn’t shown signs of giving up yet.
Stage 4’s team time trial went almost as expected: Teams Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Sky were in the top 3, and Movistar, Garmin, and Saxo-Tinkoff had fine days. But the glory went to Orica-GreenEdge, who managed to cross the finish line with the fastest time… by less than one second. The feat put Simon Gerrans, winner of stage 3, into the yellow jersey.
Stage 5 was a bit hilly, but the sprint teams did not have too much trouble hanging on. As expected, Kittel didn’t factor, but Cavendish and Greipel were there, and the Manxman nabbed his first win of the Tour.
Stage 6 was a flat affair, and despite high winds, the pack finished together. Unfortunately Cavendish went down in a crash as the day was nearing its close, and while he made it back to the group and into the finishing sprint, he couldn’t match Andre Greipel, who took his first win of the Tour.
Again, as the last VeloHuman update had anticipated, stage 7 proved too much for the flatland sprinters. A break tried to escape, but Sagan’s team Cannondale made up for their not-so-great performances in previous stages by leading the peloton for quite an amazing chunk of time, and still had the energy to catapult Sagan to his first Tour victory (albeit, with a bit of nifty handling from the Slovakian to get onto John Degenkolb’s wheel and then power past hiim) after three second place finishes. After a week, Sagan is quite comfortably in the lead for the points classification.
Stage 8: Castres > Ax 3 Domaines | 195km | Summit Finish
Finally, a stage with some serious GC implications. After many flat kilometers, the peloton will be forced to tackle a Hors Categorie climb and then chug up a Cat 1 summit finish. At least, we have a stage that will end with time gaps between riders. It’s not the most grueling mountain stage, thanks to the basically 100 km of flatness, but it will force the yellow jersey contenders to duke it out over the last several kilometers, and by the end of the day, we’ll probably see a few of the expected contenders exposed as pretenders. It will be an opportunity for Alberto Contador to show that he’s rounded into form and capable of providing his trademark attacks, and Cadel Evans will need to inspire his team’s confidence making it up the last summit with the leaders: I doubt BMC will let Tejay tow the veteran rider up many more mountains this year. With a relatively short Cat 1 finish, it looks like a great day for Alejandro Valverde, with his stable of Movistar mountain goats (Costa, Quintana, and Amador) to provide strong support. With their strategy of attacking from every angle in mind, Garmin may fire off a shot of Dan Martin or Andrew Talansky. But the boys in black (Sky) will come to the fight with all their firepower, and the recent results to answer any questions of form. Froome has shown time and again that’s up for it, and now is a good time to start his quest for the GC lead. With a better TTT than any of the big contenders, a stage win here could put him in yellow.
Stage Favorites:
1. Chris Froome | 2. Alejandro Valverde
Stage 9: Saint-Girons > Bagnères-de-Bigorre | 168.5km | High Mountains
Five categorized climbs (a Cat 2, and then four Cat 1s), but a long downhill finish: the 30km descent might make it tough for anyone to escape. It’s a very tough day, and moreso than last stage, scaling so many summits might weed out any pretenders for GC, but that finish makes this stage more of one not to lose. Joaquim Rodriguez had a forgettable Dauphine, and Katusha will be looking for him to show up over so many kilometers of up and down. This looks like the perfect day for the Sky train to make its best attempt at controlling the bunch, while a group of dedicated polka dot jersey seekers goes for the succession of points-offering mountains. We’ll probably see a lot of Pierre Rolland early in the day, but any attacks will be hard-pressed to stay alive for the long descent. If the train doesn’t roll over the line in succession, this stage could come down to the GC contender who most wants to pick up a stage win regardless of the time gaps he might pick up: sounds like a day for an enterprising hard-charger with climbing legs, like Ryder Hesjedal (if he’s capable), Cadel Evans (if he’s capable), or Alejandro Valverde. Until we know more about the form of the top guys, it’s hard to say who will be there at the end. Sky seems like another good bet for now.
Stage Favorites:
1. Chris Froome | 2. Richie Porte
-Dane Cash
Photo by Marceau R.
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