Oh, yes! I used Cervelo to make Leopard (as they didn't exist in 2009), so I put Leopard jersey in there. You will probably be seeing the 2009 jerseys as well if you haven't updated.
Today we face another quiet stage before the mountain top arrival in Verbier and the second rest day of the Tour de France. The route takes us parallel to the Germany and Swiss frontiers, all the way to the south towards the Alps. My expectation is another mass sprint finish.
The break of the day took shape right at the start of the stage. Andreas Kloden (Radioshack), JoaquÃn RodrÃguez (Lampre), Cameron Meyer (Garmin), Mark Cavendish (HTC), Philippe Gilbert (Omega) and Michael Matthews (BMC) had a nice pace in the first kilometres and built a lead of 9' 40'' at the first intermediate sprint, the biggest they would have.
However, once Liquigas and Saxo Bank decided to chase, the men in the break couldn't do anything to stay in front. The peloton didn't even have to do a big effort to bring them back. There were 20 kilometres remaining and, therefore, we were ready for another mass sprint.
Alexandre Vinokourov! The Kazakh is the fastets in the sprint ahead of Xavi Tondo, who comes second again. Saxo Bank and Liquigas work didn't pay out, as they could only manage third with Dupont and fourth with Mondory.
This was probably the last easy day for the riders until Paris. The fighting for the GC starts tomorrow with the climb to Verbier, where I expect a much more entertaining stage.
The second week of the Tour ends with the first stage in the Alps. The riders will cross the Swiss border and head towards the mountain top finish of Verbier. However, it is a rather disappointing stage, as the Col de Moses (2nd category) is 70 kilometres from the finish in Verbier. This will give the peloton a big flat terrain to work and bring back any dangerous break.
The break of the day was set up as soon as the second climb. The pack was taking things easy, taking into account the long stage ahead. The riders in front were Robert Gesink (Omega), Kanstantsin Sivtsov (HTC) and Chris Horner (Radioshack). At the top of the second break of the day they had already built a gap of almost 5 minutes.
The pack only reacted when the advantage of the break had grown to more than 10 minutes. Leopard started to chase, only to be replaced by Sky once they reached the first slopes of the Col de Moses. The British team set a high pace and several riders were suffering to hold. Therefore, the gap decreased to 6’ 10’’ on the top. The only rider dropped back was Levi Leipheimer. The American is having a miserable Tour, and already almost 30 minutes behind in the GC.
As expected, the flat between the last two climbs of the day worked nicely for the pack, as they were able to reduce the gap to slightly more than 2 minutes. On the first gentle slopes of Verbier, Gesink run out of gas and had to let go Horner and Sivtsov. The duo had 25 km to go and few hopes of making it in front.
The break ended with 19 km to go. Sky was approaching with a high pace; surely Uran was feeling good today and put his teammates to work. There are three riders within less than a second to Rojas and they may play their cards today.
Alexandre Vinokourov is the first to try an attack! 12 km to the finish and the Garmin rider manages to build a small gap even though Sky keeps working hard. The hardest part of the climb starts with 8 kilometres to go and Vino reaches there with 12 seconds on the pack.
Vinokourov passes the 5 kilometres sign with a small gap of 17’’ on the group. It is a nice fight, as the difference has never risen over 20 seconds. In the group, Saxo Bank and Liquigas have taken the chasing role but are not very successful.
With 2 kilomtres to go, some domestiques were starting to crack down and the difference grew to 30 seconds. That was when Hubert Dupont attacked and was followed by 8 other riders, including Uran, Weening and Pozzato. Rojas was nowhere to be seen in the front of the group and was in risk of losing the yellow jersey.
Alexandre Vinokourov wins in Verbier! The Kazakh did a great solo climb maintaining his small gap to the peloton all the way to the finish. Behind him, the small group of riders that jumped from the pack arrived led by Uran 29 seconds behind. The gap between them and the peloton was really small, but the officials awarded the difference. The main bunch ended up finishing 52 seconds behind.
The result means that Rojas keeps the yellow jersey but his difference is narrowing a lot. Uran holds the second position only 19 seconds behind the Spaniard. Meanwhile, Vinokourov showed his credentials to win the Tour, as he was able to hold ahead of the pack. This stage will have added a lot of fatigues on many riders ahead of two more Alps stages, let’s see if this means more or less spectacle.
Today we face the second stage in the Alps, and the first after the second rest day. The stage starts with a colossus, the Col du Grand Saint Bernard. A climb with 40 kilometres of ascent, even though the first 10 are very gentle. His little brother, the Col du Petit Saint Bernard, isn't as tough. Its slopes are gentler, so it will be difficult that the peloton breaks, unless the pace is very high.
Andreas Kloden was first atop the Grand Saint Bernard, narrowing the difference between him and Vinokourov in the mountain jersey. He had made it into a break with Mikel Nieve, Tom Boonen, George Hincapie and Cameron Meyer. The gap to the pack was 4' 40''.
Edvald Boasson Hagen fell in the Grand Saint-Bernard and never was able to rejoin the pack. He was 25th in the GC, but lost a lot of places at the end of the stage.
On the foot of the Petit Saint-Bernard, the break has an advantage of 4' 30''. Sky, Lampre and Leopard started working at the front of the peloton in the flat between the two climbs of the day.
Three kilometres to the top of the Petit Saint-Bernard and Andreas Kloden cannot follow the rhythm of the break. The German won't be able to take as many points in the mountain jersey as he had hoped.
The riders in the break go over the top with 2 minutes on the peloton, so their chances of victory in Bourg Saint Maurice are very high. Meanwhile, the pack is slowly losing riders but no serious attacks are made.
On the long descent, George Hincapie and Tom Boonen were able to drop Nieve and Meyer. With 5 km to go, their advantage on the pack was 1' 30''. The peloton suffered a number of falls on the way down towards Bourga Saint Maurice, but none of the riders was a GC contender.
Tom Boonen wins in Bourg Saint Maurice! He outsprinted clearly Hincapie and claims his first stage win. This is the fourth stage win for HTC in the Tour de France, a nice result for the American team.
Mikel Nieve gave time to the peloton, as he was caught in the finish line. They were 1' 19'' behind when they crossed the line.
A non event stage today if you look at the general classification. However, the fatigue on the riders can be clearly seen in the fact that as many as 15 of them were left behind climbing the Petit Saint-Bernard. If the trend continues, the time trial of Annecy will give us the winner of the Tour.
Dear mpardo,
could you do a little thing for me? There should be a folder called "Manager\3D\Landscapes\Roads" or similar. Could you copy that folder and upload it? I lost him and really want to continue with my story.
Guess who's back?
Lets see how many friens are still around...
The seventeenth stage has to be the queen stage of this year's Tour. The riders face two big climbs to start with: Le Cornet de Roselend and the Col des Saises. The easiest part of the race comes next, before climbing the Col d'Araches. The judge of the race will be the combined climbs of Romme and Colombiere. This is the stage that a rider that wants to win the Tour has to take advantage on, as an attack from the Col de Romme can last to the finish line.
The break of the day has some usual suspects: Mikel Nieve (Omega), Mathias Frank (BMC), Thor Hushovd (Garmin), Oscar Freire (Saxo Bank), Chris Horner (Radioshack) and Mark Cavendish (HTC). At the top of the Col des Saises, the difference between them and the pack is already 4' 20''.
Pieter Weening suffered a fall along with Tiago Machado on the descent towards the second intermediate sprint of the day. The Dutch was 4th overall, so Liquigas slowed a couple of riders to get him back to the peloton.
Sky seemed not to know what fair play is and started to chase the breakaway as soon as Weening was on the ground. It was going to be tougher than he previously thought to get back to the bunch.
Leopard, Sky and Lampre worked in front of the peloton in the climb to the Col d'Araches. The gap between the break and the peloton was 3' 55'' in the top, while Weening hadn't been able to join the pack and lost 2' 10''.
Things started to get interesting when Janez Brajkovic and Hubert Dupont left the peloton on the climb of the Col de Romme. They were tied in the GC, 1' 05'' behind Rojas. The peloton tried to increase the pace, but none of the other riders that tried to follow could jump ahead. Meanwhile, Mikel Nieve couldn't follow the pace of the break and started losing ground.
Thor Hushovd was slightly ahead of the rest of the break at the top of the Col de Romme. Behind them, Dupont and Brajkovic crossed the top 1' 57'' later and the peloton was losing 3' 35''. Pieter Weening was able to make it back to the peloton on the last kilometres of the climb, after leaving his teammates behind.
Marco Pinotti attacked succesfully at the Colombiere. He jumped as some riders from the break started to be swallowed by the pack around 1.5 km to the top. Meanwhile, Thor Hushovd kept the lead of the stage but with Dupont and Brajkovic closing in.
Thor Hushovd was first at the Colombiere, but he was showing severe signs of fatigue. Dupont and Brajkovic were only 47 seconds behind by then. Later came Pinotti, losing 1' 52'' and the peloton made it to the top with 2' 32'' lost on the Norwegian.
Francisco Ventoso was the first and most important of a series of falls on the quick descent towards Le Grand-Bornard. The Spaniard was 13th overall and would lose that spot as it took time for him to be recovered.
2 kilometres to go and Brajkovic and Dupont have overtaken Hushovd. The duo was going to fight for victory at Le Grand-Bornard.
Hubert Dupont wins the queen stage of the Tour de France! The French outsprinted Janez Brajkovic and will wear the yellow jersey in tomorrow’s time trial. 1' 10'' behind arrived Thor Hushovd and Marco Pinotti, who will also climb in the GC.
The group with the rest of the favourites arrived with 2'15'' lost on the wining duo. This was probably the mountain stage in which the pack was slimmest, as only 40 riders made it to the finish in this group.
The overall classification is now commanded by Hubert Dupont and Janez Brajkovic, both in the same time. There are two more stages that will probably make differences in the GC, tomorrow's time trial in Annecy and the climb to the Mont Ventoux. However, one-climb stages don't usually make the difference, as the riders arrive with less fatigue. Let's see how the accumulated fatigue plays its role in the last 4 days of the Tour.
The green jersey leader is also Hubert Dupont, but that will be a very contested classification and we won't probably know the outcome until the last stage in Paris. The mountain jersey is more clear, as Alexandre Vinokourov has almost secured it.
The time trial around the lake of Annecy is the only long ITT of this year's Tour de France. It is a fairly flat parcours except for the Cote de Bluffy (3.4 km at 6%). As it will be difficult that any of the riders behind makes up more than 1 minute on the leaders, the main interest of the stage is separating Dupont and Brajkovic in the GC.
Lars Ytting Bak was the first rider to set a reference time. The Dane stopped the clock at the finish in 1h 3' 34''.
His teammate Tony Martin improved his time in 9 seconds.
Edvald Boasson Hagen also had a good time trial, improving the best time by one second.
However, everything changed when a decrease in the wind strength allowed Jean-Christophe Peraud to improve the best time to 1h 2' 50'', that is 34 seconds better than Boasson Hagen. That would settle it, as no rider would improve the French time. Other rider took advantage of this, such as Goss, Mollema and Marcato.
Filippo Pozzato was sixth before the time trial and he ended up clocking the same time as Pieter Weening, who was threatening his place. He would end up 12th in the stage.
Rigoberto Uran performed even better than Pozzato, ending the stage in 9th place 29 seconds behind Peraud.
Marco Pinotti wasn't feeling as well as yesterday and ended up losing 42 seconds. That means he loses a place in the GC to Uran by only 1 second.
Janez Brajkovic completed a very good time trial, only 26 seconds behind Peraud. It would be difficult for Dupont to improve that time.
But Hubert Dupont clocks an impressive 1h 3' 10'', which gives him the third position in today's stage and drops Brajkovic 6 seconds behind in the GC. A great performance by both GC contenders after the good effort they had to make yesterday.
The time trial leaves us with the two favourites only 6 seconds apart and waiting for the Mont Ventoux. Before that, we have a stage that suits well to breakaways ending in Aubenas.
An easy stage among the very tough last week of the Tour. Favourites are not expected to make any extra effort, keeping forces for tomorrow's Mont Ventoux. The last climb is very close to the finish, but the percentages are very gentle. It should be good for a break, or a mass sprint otherwise.
Three men jumped ahead after the first climb of the day: JoaquÃn RodrÃguez (Lampre), Cameron Meyer (Garmin) and Michael Matthews (BMC). The peloton didn't seem to care about them until RodrÃguez was a threat in the GC, as he was 9'40'' behind. With 80 kilometres to go, they had 9' 20'' on the pack and the chase started.
The fourth in the GC, Marco Pinotti, took a tumble with 47 km to go. Four riders of HTC waited him to help him back into the pack.
The riders in the break didn't really have the strength to make it to the finish alone and they were caught before starting the climb to the Col de L'Escrinet. Pinotti made it easily back to the peloton shortly before.
As expected, the climb wasn't hard enough to drop a lot of riders. However, it made the peloton look completely uncontrolled as we approached the finish line. It was going to be a messy sprint.
Dupont does it again! The leader shows that he is the fittest rider in the race and collects another stage win. Francisco Ventoso seemed to be able to overtake him during the sprint, but the Spaniard run out of gas and lost it by half a wheel.
An unremarkable stage lets Dupont make a point on his chances of wining the Tour. In the way he also strengthens his lead in the green jersey classification. The most expected climb of the round comes tomorrow, the Mont Ventoux awaits the riders.
The Mont Ventoux stage is probably the stage that everyone awaited since the start of the Tour. The inherent interest of this stage will be bigger, as the two leaders are separated by only 6 seconds in the GC. Once completed, the leader will only have to have a walk in the Champs Elysee before being crowned.
Two riders were riding ahead at the third climb of the day: Mikel Nieve (Omega) and Mark Cavendish (HTC). The Spaniard was trying to challenge the mountain jersey, held by Vinokourov, and that included taking a good amount of intermediate climbs plus a good amount of points at the Ventoux. At that point they were 1’ 57’’ ahead of Jean-Christophe Peraud. Who had jumped later from the pack and the gap to the peloton was more than 6 minutes.
On the foot of the Mont Ventoux the three riders in front had joined, but considering the pace of the pack, it was clear that they weren’t going to make it to the finish. The gap had reduced to 2’ 45’’.
Radioshack started the climb putting a good pace in front o the peloton and they soon catched the break. However, Saxo Bank took the responsibility from the 12 kilometres mark. By the time they crossed the 10 km sign no rider had been able to pull away from the pack.
Jacob Fuglsang wins in the Mont Ventoux! The Leopard rider was the fastest in the sprint of the small group of 6 riders. Hubert Dupont was among those, so he has virtually won the Tour the France. Brajkovic couldn’t follow the pace in the last km and ended up losing another 13 seconds.
In the mountain jersey, Alexandre Vinokourov confirmed his leadership by ending third in the stage and will climb to Paris podium. It will be a nice ride for Dupont, Brajkovic and Uran tomorrow, as they will celebrate their podium in the Tour.
Just before the arrival of the Tour to Paris there have been a couple of announcements. First of all, three nations have more than 9 riders in the peloton, and therefore have to discard riders for the World Championship in Mendrisio.
The last stage of the Tour is a prize for the riders that made it through the 3 weeks of suffering. The local Hubert Dupont will enjoy the applause of his fellow countrymen as he will climb to the podium as winner of the Tour.
As usual, a break took shape in the first kilometres of the race. The riders in front were: Philippe Gilbert (Omega), Thor Hushovd (Garmin), Jos van Emden (Leopard), Kanstantsin Sivtsiv (HTC) and George Hincapie (BMC). By the time they reached the second intermediate sprint, they had built a gap of 6’ 50’’ on the peloton.
Liquigas and Saxo Bank had started to work in front of the pack as before reaching the Champs Elysee. There were 52 kilometres to the finish and the gap was already down to 4’ 35’’.
A couple of laps to go and it was clear already that the breakaway wasn’t going to make it to the finish. The peloton started to chase hard and the gap reduced to less than 1 minute.
Half a lap to the finish and Liquigas is already forming its train. Mondory has a chance to take the green jersey from Dupont, so the yellow jersey has taken the wheel of his fellow Frenchman.
Mondory wins in the Champs Elysee! He beats Dupont in a very tight sprint. Liquigas train worked perfectly, leaving the job half done for Mondory, whose only threat was the yellow jersey. Dupont has made clear that his shape during the last week of the Tour has been magnificent.
A weird Tour all in all, as the lack of differences in the attributes of the riders makes the fittest fight for all the stage wins. As the riders gain and lose attributes, we will see a very different scenario from next year.
The winner of the Tour de France, Hubert Dupont, has signed a new contract with Saxo Bank for the next 3 seasons. The French will receive 900.000 euros as salary.
Lloyd Mondary, second at the Tour the Suisse and third in Paris-Nice, has renewed its contract with Liquigas. He will be receiving 950.000 per year during the 3 years of his contract.
The Spaniard David López is the first signing of the new World Tour team Euskaltel. The winner of 2 stages and the points jersey in Catalunya has a contract worth 380.000 euros per annum.
Tejay Van Garderen is the first new face to sign for a World Tour team. The American has signed a new contract with Garmin or three years and 125.000 euros.
