Today's stage is a hilly TT. Maybe for the specialists, although Wiggins and Evans really suit to the course well.
Team Plan: Tell our guys to go as hard as possible. Maybe JCP can get us a top 10.
Tom Danielson set the early best time that held up until his teammate Dave Zabriskie beat it. However they got swamped in the end.
Jens Voigt surprised at the first checkpoints, but finished 2 seconds down on Zabrsikie at the finish line.
Fabian Cancellara looked to defend his prologue win coming in with a new best time of 52:10.
But the World Champion would have none of it, passing David Millar, who himself finished 10th, In the end, despite being down at all the checks, Martin crushed Spartacus' time by almost half a minute.
Nico set off, putting ina decent ride, but not enough to no drop down the overall, 3:01 down to the provisional winner.
Peraud left the start house and put in a fantasic time. He was 9th, 10th, and 9th at the time checks respectively, but came home on the provisional podium, only 1:33 down to Tony Martin.
Riblon started second to last, behind Wiggins. He put a decent time to fall to 5th GC
Wiggins stormed out of the gate to all 3 time chack victories! What a performance! Or so it seemed. He cracked in the end, taking third from JCP, 1:01 behind Martin.
Cadel evans wanted this TT so bad he refused to wear the yellow jersey because it was a different skinsuit brand. It was definetley worth it though...
Best time for Cadel Evans and the stage win, 36 seconds in front of Martin!
Evans took the stage. Jean Christophe ended up with a great top 5.
Stage Rankings:
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
51'06
2
Tony Martin
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team
+ 36
3
Fabian Cancellara
RadioShack - Nissan
+ 1'04
4
Bradley Wiggins
Sky Procycling
+ 1'37
5
Jean-Christophe Peraud
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 1'59
6
Andreas Klöden
RadioShack - Nissan
+ 2'10
7
Alexandre Vinokourov
Astana Pro Team
+ 2'24
8
Yaroslav Popovych
RadioShack - Nissan
+ 2'29
9
Philippe Gilbert
BMC Racing Team
+ 2'37
10
David Millar
Garmin - Barracuda
s.t.
JCP now holds a podium spot, but Evans has already taken hold of this Tour convincingly.
Evans you cheat! Should have done a sky and made his own yellow skinsuit before the tour just in case. It's a shame this tour is already over for top spot, exciting race for the remaining two podium positions now though
Today's stage starts out flat, but mid way the mighty Col du Grand Clomobier will torture the weaker riders, quickly followed by the Col de Richemond before a 20 km decent to the finish in Bellegarde sur Valserine.
Team Plan: Roche needs to start getting mountain points, but his GC is getting the way. He obviously won';t just sit up though, so this is a GC day for the team.
A large break got away, and th epack yoyoed between chasing and laying back. Bouet went, but then the pack chased and he ended up stranded on the middle so he just sat up and waited instead of pushing a hopeless cause.
When the break was formed for real, it was well into the race, after the sprint (which the big break took all points) and the first mountain. This break was 4 riders: Moncoutie, Brajkovic, Taaramae, and Jerome Coppel.
Far up the slopes, Moncoutie won the Colombier without competition.
With still 1 km to go for the peleton, all hell broke lose, starting with an attack from Alexandre Vinokourov.
Over the top Gesink, Leipheimer and Voeckler joined in, but were brought back.
As the group was getting caught, the Giro winner Ryder Hesjedal and and Scarponi bridged for no reason, hitting the slopes of the Richemond.
Gesink tried again, followed by the formentioned riders and Samu Sanchez! BUt they were caught as a train of Richie Porte, Michael Rogers, Kanstintin Sivtsov and EBH reeled them in easily from the peleton.
But Wiggins went! Porte drove him of the front to set him up!. Evans follows, along with Peraud! 1-2-3 in the Tour with Menchov tagged on the back!
They were again brought back, but all the commotion reeled in the BOTD.
Radioshack owned the front with 5 km left. Roche and JCP had to freelance. Riblon was 1 group behind.
But Evans charges up the right. Roche can't follow.
Evans plows away and all the other s have realized it too late! Is there any stopping Cadel Evans in this Tour de France?...
...And the answer is no there is not! The Mailot Jaune takes his 4th straight stage!
Roche to come home 13th , JCp 19th. Klodie and Gesink round out he podium.
EBH won't crack yet, but the real test will be tomorrow on La Toussuire.
Youth Classification:
Radioshack keep the team easily over your's truly.
Team Classification:
Update on Dupont, Hinault, Froome
Dupont started felt only worse today after the hard mountains.
However, Hinault contributed and is starting to feel better.
Froome managed to stay with the group today but couldn't work at all, and his injuries may force an abandon sooner rather than later.
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If anyone has any questions about anything, feel free to ask!
Today's stage is a monster. With 2 HC's, a 2nd Cat and a 1st cat up to the finish. The wind could also be a factor as the weather report says.
Team plan: If we can't get some mountain points with Roche today, then we will give up on that, and goo all out GC.
Roche had to attack, so he did. But being high up overall he wasn't allowed to break away.
Riblon tried next, but once again was marked.
With so much time being wasted, the KOM leader went out to grab some points, followed by Jerome Coppel.
Moncoutie won the sprint in front of Coppel, and Roche scampered to third over the Col de la Madeleine. The break was caught by the peleton's pace.
A five man group of Rein Taaramae, Pierre Rolland, Amets Txurruka, Coppel, and Rob Ruijh.
Vincenzo Nibali was the first favorite to attack on the slopes of the Col de la Croix de Fer, but with the Sky Train on the front, it went nowhere.
Rolland attacked with Taaramae followinf. Ruijh and Txurruka couldn't keep up and popped, while Coppel tried to fight across the gap.
With TJVG still in the group, Boasson Hagen cracked hard on the early slopes of the final Category 1 climb.
With 10 km left to the top, the break was caught, and Scarponi of Lampre and Gesink of Rabobank countered.
JCP was trying to pace up to a group that had Nibali, Basso, Vino and Kloden, which was right behind the 5 man group being led my the Mailot Juane (Who else?) and the two attackers with Schleck and Wiggins.
Wiggins popped as Evans plowed away again, Schleck waited on the back to pounce for second...
Evans takes another. 5 in a row. This must be some sort of record. Schleck in secod, Gesink third.
Evans takes it. JCP finishes 10th, 1:22 behind. Riblon cracked bad and won't have to worry about GC at all, which lifts a burden for us. Roche was 19th at 2:19 back.
Stage Rankings:
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
5h01'32
2
Fränk Schleck
RadioShack - Nissan
+ 7
3
Robert Gesink
Rabobank Cycling Team
s.t.
4
Michele Scarponi
Lampre - ISD
s.t.
5
Bradley Wiggins
Sky Procycling
+ 24
6
Ivan Basso
Liquigas - Cannondale
+ 1'04
7
Alexandre Vinokourov
Astana Pro Team
+ 1'13
8
Andreas Klöden
RadioShack - Nissan
s.t.
9
Vincenzo Nibali
Liquigas - Cannondale
s.t.
10
Jean-Christophe Peraud
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 1'22
Peraud moves down to 5th, but can make up the minute to Schleck in the TT easily. Nico has a gap in 7th.
General Classification:
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Cadel Evans
BMC Racing Team
49h05'35
2
Bradley Wiggins
Sky Procycling
+ 3'48
3
Fränk Schleck
RadioShack - Nissan
+ 4'32
4
Michele Scarponi
Lampre - ISD
+ 5'11
5
Jean-Christophe Peraud
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 5'26
6
Vincenzo Nibali
Liquigas - Cannondale
+ 6'35
7
Nicolas Roche
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 8'06
8
Alexandre Vinokourov
Astana Pro Team
+ 9'41
9
Ivan Basso
Liquigas - Cannondale
+ 9'44
10
Robert Gesink
Rabobank Cycling Team
+ 9'53
Dominevans continues, as he now has the green all but wrapped up as well.
Edvald's gap has been redued to 2:55 from Tejay and a little more to Rein. Time to see the real competition. At least it's better than the "fight" for yellow.
We never expected to be in the team race... and now we aren't after Riblon cracked to 17th in the GC. But we were never going for it anyway. Radioshack has it easily like always with the biggest competition coming from Sky and their train.
Team Classification:
Rank
Team
Time
General Time
1
RadioShack - Nissan
15h08'24
147h30'57 (1)
2
Sky Procycling
+ 1'14
+ 8'26 (2)
3
Rabobank Cycling Team
+ 1'15
+ 25'40 (7)
4
Omega Pharma - Quick·Step Cycling Team
+ 2'21
+ 10'39 (3)
5
Garmin - Barracuda
+ 2'46
+ 40'36 (10)
6
Movistar Team
+ 3'15
+ 47'24 (11)
7
Team Europcar
+ 3'16
+ 37'22 (9)
8
Astana Pro Team
+ 5'05
+ 22'29 (5)
9
Euskaltel - Euskadi
+ 6'26
+ 58'33 (17)
10
AG2R La Mondiale
+ 6'32
+ 13'12 (4)
Sad News
Today we saw the sad elimination of Sebastien Hinault. He wasn't feeling right the whole race and the Queen Stage was too much too handle. We'll help him rest in time for Vattenyfall. We now have 8 men left. It is really better for Hinault torest, but it's always sad to go from the epicenter of cycling. He said, "I just couldn't keep up with the grupetto in the end and I was swamped from the inside out, coughing up bits of mucus as I dredged up La Toussuire. What disapoints me is that I was the first person to be eliminated out of the 16 that were. One group up and I could have made it. Whatever I could have done I did though. I have no regrets."
Edited by baseballlover312 on 30-07-2012 20:05
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Played Stage 13. But my computer crashed just as it ended. Not only did the stage go horrible for the team, but I have no exported results or podium screens.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
Should have done a sky and made his own yellow skinsuit before the tour just in case. It's a shame this tour is already over for top spot, exciting race for the remaining two podium positions now though 
