Well, its the first mountainous stage of this year Tour Med, and im happy. Although most pro riders would be disgusted that I'm celebrating just finishing the peleton, the morale is up and im looking forward to today's stage. Hopefully I can show the skill I was highered for: getting up the mountains faster than the other guys.
The break goes out, Rujano is pretty dangerous and thus the peleton never gives them a big lead. It's all back together at the bottom of the last climb. 5km at over 8%, and im very surprised at how quickly the attacks go. Within the first kilometer, all of the favorites are up the road and were left struggling in the peleton. Gadret attacks with Voeckler, but it looks like they are fading.
Chavanel attacks withing the last kilometer and its a battle right to the line... literally. Who wins?
Stage Results:
1 John Gadret Ag2r Prévoyance 2h43'52
2 Sylvain Chavanel Cofidis, le Crédit Par Téléphone s.t.
3 Andrea Tonti Quick Step - Innergetic + 8
4 Bradley McGee Française Des Jeux s.t.
5 Sylvester Szmyd Lampre - Fondital s.t.
6 Thomas Voeckler Bouygues Telecom + 34
7 Laurent Brochard Bouygues Telecom s.t.
8 Didier Rous Bouygues Telecom s.t.
9 Christophe Moreau Ag2r Prévoyance s.t.
10 Sylvain Calzati Ag2r Prévoyance s.t. 42 Riley Majeune Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle +2'46
Overall GC:
1 John Gadret Ag2r Prévoyance 5h26'45
2 Sylvain Chavanel Cofidis, le Crédit Par Téléphone + 8
3 Andrea Tonti Quick Step - Innergetic + 20
4 Bradley McGee Française Des Jeux + 28
5 Sylvester Szmyd Lampre - Fondital s.t.
So it was a decent stage, I had hoped to be with the front group at the end of the climb, but the two previous long climbs took too much out of me.
Stage 3
The TTT... wow. The nerves got to the young guys and everything fell apart. The guys who weren't good at time trialing took too long pulls at the front, and finally they started to pull over. However, this created gaps in the paceline, which our good time trialists had to waste energy to close. What a mess. But we did finish in a respectable last.
FDJ powering to the win.
Overall GC:
1 Sylvain Chavanel Cofidis, le Crédit Par Téléphone 5h48'42
2 Bradley McGee Française Des Jeux + 7
3 John Gadret Ag2r Prévoyance + 15
4 Rik Verbrugghe Cofidis, le Crédit Par Téléphone + 46
5 David Moncoutié Cofidis, le Crédit Par Téléphone s.t.
Up next, stage 4. The whole team tried to hide from our director spourtif after the TTT performance. But its kind of hard to do so, and thus got yelled at for a while, we had to ride another hour practicing the paceline... very embarassing.