Another flat stage ending in a hilltop awaits the riders today. The finish is tougher this time, as the final climb is the Mur de Bretagne. The hill is around 2 kilometers long but has sections peaking at 12% gradient in its first kilometer. That should make the uphill finishers and the GC favorites eager to take a stage win.
5 riders reached the intermediate sprint of Spezet ahead (82 kilometers to go). They were: John Degenkolb (Lampre), Geraint Thomas (Garmin), Cameron Meyer (HTC), Luca Paolini (Movistar) and Maxim Iglinskiy (Astana). They had 4' 50;; on the bunch, where Quickstep was already setting a chasing pace.
As expected, the peloton catches everyone ahead with 23 kilometers remaining. Before that a dangerous group including Sylvain Chavanel and Jakob Fuglsang had tried to get a gap on the bunch but soon many teams helped bring their small gap down. It looks like the race will be decided in the climb to the Mur de Bretagne.
Two teams have won the positioning battle ahead of the final climb to Mur de Bretagne. Astana has Filippo Pozzato leading Alexandre Vinokourov and Hubert Dupont is taking the wheel of the Kazakh. On the left of the road Lotto has Jose Joaquin Rojas leading Bjorn Leukemans with George Hincapie on his wheel.
The climb to the Mur de Bretagne has lots of potential winners as the riders enter the last kilometer of the stage. Mikel Nieve is leading the way ahead of Oscar Freire, Dries Devenyns and Bauke Mollema. There is a good mix of uphill finishers and GC contenders. On the bad news, Denis Menchov crashed at the bottom of the climb and will probably lose some time in the finish line.
Mikel Nieve wins in Mur de Bretagne! The Spaniard held off Bauke Mollema, who came faster than him to take the fourth stage of the Tour de France. Mollema and Frank Schleck repeat among the best as they did in the Mont des Alouettes, what suggests that they have reached the race in top form. Frank recovers the leaders jersey with the 4 bonus seconds. Only a group of 21 riders arrived in the same time, as the rest of the group was given a 25 second loss. Among those losing time were Steven Kruijswijk, Xavi Tondo, Chris Froome and Bart de Clerq.
Denis Menchov had a horrible day due to his crash and lost almost 3 minutes in the finish line. Meanwhile, this result allows Nieve, Ruijgh and Mollema to climb to the top 10 in the GC. The sprinters will find it a little bit more difficult to wear the leaders jersey, as they are now a bit far in the GC considering the time bonuses.
The fifth stage of the Tour is the second opportunity for the sprinters. Although the route is quite bumpy, the bunch should have no trouble controlling the stage as there are a lot of teams interested in a mass sprint. The route is not long, at 165 kilometers it should pose no problem for the riders.
Today's break took a little while to be set, as the bunch wasn't willing to let go strong riders. In the end a group of 10 riders went away, including Gregory Rast (Sky), Kenny van Hummel (Rabobank), Carlos Barredo (Katusha), Elia Viviani (Lampre) and Fabian Cancellara (Ag2r). They reached the north coast of France when 80 kilometers were remaining and the gap was 5' 05''.
The break was posing a much bigger problem than expected. With 10 kilometers remaining Carlos Barredo had left his fellows and tried a solo effort to the finish line. He had 25 seconds on a group of 4 chasers and the peloton was still 1' 30'' behind. The Spaniard, who already won earlier this year, has a good chance to take the win.
The chase for Barredo was frantic as he still had 25 seconds on the peloton with 4 kilometers remaining. Meanwhile, the sprint trains were starting to appear. BMC had Alessandro Ballan leading Sacha Modolo and Ben Swift was behind. Meanwhile, the other train that was building was the Lotto one, with Jose Joaquin Rojas ahead of Andre Greipel.
Barredo couldn't resist the push of the bunch and was finally swallowed by the bunch as they entered the last kilometer. The old sprint dominators, Alexandre Vinokourov and Tyler Farrar, are leading the sprint while they are followed by Matthew Goss and Peter Sagan.
Alexandre Vinokourov wins in Cap Frehel! The Kazakh held off Tyler Farrar to get his second stage win of the season, adding to the one he got in Dijon during the Dauphine. Tyler Farrar was second again, what shows that he arrived in a good form to France and will be looking to take his first win of the season. Tony Gallopin finished strongly taking the third place in the stage.
There were no significant changes in the GC, as only Alexandre Vinokourov entered the top 10 with the bonus seconds he got. The Kazakh also leads the point's classification now. In the young riders classification Tony Gallopin took the lead ahead of Davide Rebellin.
Another flat stage along the northern coast of France is today's menu. However, the route will not be as easy as yesterday, as there are quite a few bumps along the road to Lisieux. The last 30 kilometers have three small hills, only the first of them marked for the KoM jersey. This shouldn't upset the mass sprint, but probably the sprinters with better hill abilities will have an edge today.
Pieter Weening didn't have a good start to this rainy day. The Dutch crashed in the kilometer 22 along with Ben Hermans and Alberto Contador. Hopefully Weening will not suffer from the injuries he already had due to the crash that made him retire from the Tour de Suisse last month.
Astana was encouraged by yesterday's stage win by Alexandre Vinokourov and only let go a break of 4 riders: Simone Ponzi (Katusha), Gregory Rast (Sky), Fabian Cancellara (Ag2r) and Luca Paolini (Movistar). They would stand little chances of a stage win, as even though the route is more favorable than yesterday there are a lot of teams interested in the stage win. Nevertheless, they had a gap of 8 minutes on the Cote de Saint-Michel de Montjoie (128 km to go).
The break was caught in the climb to the last categorized climb of the day, the Cote du Billot. Bjorn Leukemans attacked in the climb and led the peloton by 12 seconds in the top. However, his aim was only the points and he soon was back in the pack again.
Xavi Tondo (Euskaltel) had the toughest of the luck as he suffered a puncture with 18 kilometers remaining. Some teammates immediately waited for him, but most probably he will lose time in the finish line.
The riders reach the bottom of the last hill with the sprinting trains taking shape. Astana was too quick to form his train and Pozzato is losing ground. The two most successful trains are the one from Vacansoleil, where Sebastian Langeveld is leading Peter Sagan and Tony Gallopin, and the one from Lotto, where Jose Joaquin Rojas is ahead of Andre Greipel.
Peter Sagan leads the way as they approach the end of the small hill. The Slovak has Tony Gallopin right behind, while Ben Swift and Alexandre Vinokourov are trailing them.
Tony Gallopin wins in Lisieux! Quickstep takes another win in the Tour as Gallopin edged Sagan in the final meters of the sprint. Both of them were clearly superior to the rest of the riders in the fight for the stage. Ben Swift took the third position in the stage, while Alexandre Vinokourov was fourth.
Xavi Tondo did lose time in the finish line as he arrived more than 3 minutes behind the leaders. The bad news for Euskaltel don't end there as Contador seems to be injured due to his crash earlier today. He will try to continue in the race, but it will probably take a while for him to be recovered.
This is the second stage well over 200 kilometers and that means that the fatigue should start growing in the riders. Today the route is as flat as it gets while the route turns south towards the town of Chateauroux, in the centre of the country. Another mass sprint is expected today.
Even though the chances of the break were slim today a group of 7 riders tried it nevertheless. It included Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Katusha), Grega Bole (Movistar), Janez Brajkovic (Discovery) and Cameron Meyer (HTC). The Australian seems to catch the break every day. They had a gap of 7 minutes as they went by the sign marking 100 kilometers to go.
Janez Brajkovic won the sprint in Buzancais (25 kilometers to go) but the difference with the group is down to 40 seconds and they will be caught. A lot of teams are still interested in the mass sprint so there are no chances for the breaks then.
The break was caught and Alessandro Ballan was doing a great job to get Sacha Modolo well positioned for the sprint. He was followed by Alexandre Vinokourov and Tyler Farrar. Side by side with the BMC train is Sebastian Langeveld progressing with Peter Sagan.
Sagan starts the sprint fastest as he did yesterday in Lisieux. Halfway through the sprint his teammate Langeveld is still second while the biggest rivals of the Slovak are Heinrich Haussler and Stefan van Dijk.
Peter Sagan wins in Chateauroux! The Vacansoleil rider made a dominant sprint after his teammate Sebastian Langeveld left him in a perfect position for the sprint. Behind him Heinrich Haussler maintained the second place in the stage. Tyler Farrar progressed a lot to grab the third place ahead of Alexandre Vinokourov.
The sprinter's stages take a break now with two medium mountain stages on the weekend. The GC suffers no changes on today's stage as expected.
The Grand Tours have been used to present next year's calendar by the UCI and this time it is no different. The new calendar has two GTs for the first time in the story and sees the number of racing days increased to 90.
It is also notorious the appearance of categories in the calendar, with some races being classified HC. Until now, all the races had been classified WT in the story.
The teams will be allowed to have 10 riders in the squad to cope with the increase of the number of racing days.
Tour de France Stage 8: Aigurande - Super-Besse Sancy
The first medium mountain stage of the Tour arrives on the second Saturday of the race. Most of the stage is not really difficult, but there are quite a few small hills. However, in the last 35 kilometers we have the first real climb of the Tour, Col de la Croix Saint-Robert, and the final climb to the sky station of Super-Besse Sancy. Even though not many differences are expected we will probably see the GC contenders try to grab a few seconds.
Today's break had quite a few good riders, like the winner of the Tour of Flanders Johan van Summeren (Quickstep), Sylvain Chavanel (Ag2r), Francisco Ventoso (Euskaltel), Rigoberto Uran (Sky) and Beñat Intxausti (Katusha). The group had a total of 8 riders and enjoyed a gap of 7 minutes in the intermediate sprint of Auzances. Radioshack is setting a pace in the bunch but not chasing.
The bunch increased the pace quite a bit ahead of the main climb of the day, Col de la Croix Saint-Robert. At the start of the climb (33 km to go) Cadel Evans was leading the group and setting quite a high pace. Saxo Bank and BMC were also keen to make the race harder. Meanwhile, the break's gap had gone down to 2 minutes.
Sylvain Chavanel was first in the KoM sprint, as he had done in the two previous climbs of the day. This should allow him to grab the mountain jersey. The break seemed to split in 2 in the last meters of the climb, while the bunch was climbing at a high pace but without attacks.
Chavanel and Uran had attacked from the break, but they were eventually caught with 8 kilometers to go. The break was good, but the teams of the favorites seem to be keen on fighting for the bonus seconds. They were already closing on the climb to Super-Besse.
David Lopez (Euskaltel) leads the way at the top of the first part of the final climb (3 km to go). He was followed by Van Garderen and Pinot, but the whole bunch was trailing behind. There is only 1 kilometer of slight descent and 1.7 km at 7% to the finish.
Thibaut Pinot launched a great attack and, while the other favorites look at each other, reaches the last kilometer with a gap of 25 seconds on the main group. This should be enough to win the stage.
Thibaut Pinot wins in Super-Besse Sancy! A great victory by the French rider, he finished 15 seconds ahead of the group of favorites. This win alone could make the year of Ag2r - La Mondiale much better. The French team is new this year and their main target of the year was a stage win in the Tour.
Rob Ruijgh won the sprint of the group of favorites ahead of Bauke Mollema and Levi Leipheimer. The Dutch needs some confidence after his poor first half of the season and jumps to 3rd in the GC with the 6 bonus seconds he earned. The day had no surprises as all the favorites arrived in the big group that made it 15 seconds behind Pinot to the finish.
The first hard stage of teh Tour de France takes the riders from Issoire to Saint Flour, in the Auvergne region. The stage is rather long at 209 kilometers and has a series of climbs in the middle of the stage that will leave the bunch reduced. As many as 7 categorized climbs will be in the route, with 5 of them consecutively in a bit more than 50 kilometers. An interesting day in which the stage win could well go into the breakaway.
Maxime Monfort (Ag2r) and Maxim Iglinskiy (Astana) were in the lead from the first kilometer of the stage and they went over the top of the Col de Perthus in front (3rd climb of the day, 98 km to go). Another stronger break formed in the first climb and Janez Brajkovic (Discovery) decided to chase the duo alone. He was losing only 40 seconds. 2 minutes behind the leaders came Bjorn Leukemans, Greg van Avermaet and Tom Danielson. The bunch was taking things easy and was still losing 7' 10''.
The series of climbs was harder than expected on the bunch. The group broke apart and only a group of 26 favorites reached the Col de Prat de Bouc in front (56 kilometers to go). Among those missing the break were George Hincapie (BMC), Steven Kruijswijk (Movistar), Bart de Clerq (Lampre) and Jelle Vanendert (Lotto). Vanendert seems to be suffering for the World Champion curse already. Meanwhile, the break lost much of their advantage and their options are very limited for the stage win.
Andy Schleck (HTC) took the KoM points in the Cote de Chateau d'Alleuze, the last climb of the day. The front group had already taken care of the break and the winner would be among them. In the back group only BMC seemed to be organized enough to chase, but the gap was already 3 minutes.
Frank Schleck did a great attack just after the sprint for the KoM points and there was a moment of uncertainty in the group as no one chased. Soon after, Rob Ruijgh, Bauke Mollema and Pieter Weening formed a chasing group. Schleck had built a gap of 25 seconds on the trio with 8 kilometers remaining and 1' 20'' to the rest of the group.
The main favorites group organized a little bit but didn't manage to close down the differences as the riders were closing in the final uphill finish in Saint Flour.
Frank Schleck is going to get the win as they climb to the finish. Meanwhile Rob Ruijgh leads the Dutch trio ahead of Mollema and Weening. They lose around 30 seconds on the leader.
Frank Schleck wins in Saint Flour! He takes his second stage win in the Tour and extends his lead in the GC. Ruijgh leads the chasers through the finish line ahead of Mollema 27 seconds behind Schleck and that means that Ruijgh is 2nd in the GC 36 seconds behind while Mollema is losing 42 seconds.
Mikel Nieve wins the sprint of the favorites group to take the 5th place. They arrive 1' 21'' behind Frank Schleck. Among other important riders that weren't in this group George Hincapie lost 3' 13'' and Kruijswijk, Vanendert and De Clerq arrived in the same group 3' 49'' behind Schleck.
The GC has taken a big revamp in a day that wasn't supposed to be very important for the GC. The set of riders that could contend for the final victory in Paris is now quite thinner, as some of the leaders lost quite a bit of time. Among those that had a miserable day was Denis Menchov. The Russian must be suffering for his crash earlier this week and now sits more than 8 minutes behind in the GC.
Lieuwe Westra is just taking part on his second season on the story but he has already made a big impact as one of the best young riders. Westra arrived to a Rabobank team that had in Oscar Freire and the World Champion Joost van Leijen its best riders. However, Westra soon made an impact on the very strange Paris - Roubaix that we had last year. As many favorites suffered different problems through the day Westra was able to grab his first win. And what a win!
Even though that was the only good result of Westsra in his first season he got to be the second most successful rider in the Rabobank team. That promoted him to a more important position in the team. Westra answered to the confidence deposited in him with a fantastic start of the season where he got a stage win in the Tirreno - Adriatico and a 2nd place in Milano - Sanremo. The Dutchman was starting to like the feeling of the podium in the Monuments.
Westra has also improved in his time trial abilities this year. In the middle part of the seasonhe got top 10 finishes in the two Swiss stage races and the corresponding young leader jerseys. With these kind of performances the future is looking bright for Westra in the Rabobank team. He has one more year remaining in his contract and will probably receive more of a leader role next year.
Wins:
2011
- 1st Paris - Roubaix
2012
- 1st Stage 2 Tirreno - Adriatico
- 1st Young jersey Tour de Romandie
- 1st Young jersey Tour de Suisse
Other notable results:
- 8th 2012 Tirreno - Adriatico
- 2nd 2012 Milano - Sanremo
- 7th 2012 Tour de Romandie
- 7th 2012 Tour de Suisse
The tenth stage of the Tour will be again a quiet one in terms of the GC. The cyclists will arrive at Carmaux, as the races heads south towards the Pyrenees. Its profile with four categorized climbs could benefit a break, but a mass sprint cannot be discarded as the climbs are not hard at all and the teams are not too tired yet.
The riders had almost covered half the stage as they climbed the second hill of the day, the Cote de Loupiac. A good break had taken some work to be built, but in the end a big group of 12 left the bunch behind. It included Janez Brajkovic (Discovery), Maxime Monfort (Ag2r), Geraint Thomas (Garmin), Simone Ponzi (Katusha) and Andreas Kloden (HTC). Even though they were pulling hard the peloton never gave them a big gap, which was at 4' 10'' in this climb.
The break was reduced to 9 riders as they climbed the last hill of the day, Cote de Mirandol-Bourgnounac, and entered the last 15 kilometers of the day. The pack is chasing hard and losing only 40 seconds at the top. However, all the terrain is favorable from here to the finish line.
A group of 4 riders from the break reached the last 4 kilometers 20 seconds ahead of the bunch: Brajkovic, Paolini, Ponzi and Thomas. It is going to be very close as the bunch has already started setting up the trains. BMC, Lampre and Vacansoleil are the teams leading the sprint.
The breakers reach the last kilometer marginally ahead of the bunch. Luca Paolini leads the sprint ahead of Janez Brajkovic. Meanwhile, the guys in the peloton started the sprint earlier in a bid to try to catch the break in time.
Alexandre Vinokourov wins in Carmaux! A massive sprint by the Kazakh, who takes his second stage win in the Tour. Astana has been working very hard for Vinokourov this week and he has repaid the good work. These wins in the most important race of the World will surely keep the sponsors of the new team really happy.
Tony Gallopin took the second place while Ben Swift was third. Some guys from the break were caught right in the last meters of the stage, as Thomas finally got the fourth place and Paolini was fifth.
The chances for the sprinters are starting to be scarce, so they better take advantage of this stage. The profile is gentler than yesterday, so it shouldn't be too hard for the teams of the sprinters to control the pace.
A group of 7 riders broke away from the bunch very early in the race and they reached the sprint in Gaillac 7' 15'' ahead. Among them, some of the usual guys in this Tour's breaks: Maxime Monfort (Ag2r), Janez Brajkovic (Discovery), Andreas Kloden (HTC) and Luca Paolini (Movistar).
The break was difficult to catch today but with only 7 kilometers remaining the gap had shrank to 20 seconds and it looked like the stage win was in the bunch. The nerves for the positioning were back in the peloton.
Astana and Vacansoleil did the best job again in building their trains. In the Kazakh team, Filippo Pozzato was leading Alexandre Vinokourov, while Ben Swift was behind the points leader. In Vacansoleil Sebastian Langeveld was leading Peter Sagan and Peter Kennaugh was behind.
Alexandre Vinokourov leads the sprint again. The Kazakh aiming to get his third win in the Tour. Ben Swift is trailing along with Peter Sagan and Fran Ventoso is also in the fight. Vinokourov is the most consistent sprinter in this Tour, as he is involved every single day.
Ben Swift wins in Lavaur! The British came from behind to grab the win narrowly ahead of Alexandre Vinokourov. This is the first win of Swift since the Eneco Tour last year. A very welcome win in the Sky camp, as the team is now in the top 10 of the team win count this year with a limited budget.
Francisco Ventoso was third ahead of Tony Gallopin. The French is trailing Vinokourov in the points competition but every day the gap is increasing. It will be interesting to see if the GC riders are able to get into the fight in the mountain stages that start tomorrow.
The mountains finally arrive in the Tour de France in the twelfth stage. This year's route tackles the Pyrenees first and the riders will have a very tough stage to start with. The first half of today's long stage is very flat but in the second part there will be three very difficult climbs: Horquette d'Ancizan, Tourmalet and Luz Ardiden. If the riders show a bit of combativity the differences in the finish line can be huge.
Six brave riders tried to take the stage win today with a long break. However, no good climbers were in there as the main men in the group were Geraint Thomas (Garmin), Andreas Kloden (HTC), Jose Joaquin Rojas (Lotto) and John Degenkolb (Lampre). They had a gap of 8' 20'' on the peloton as they went through the intermediate sprint in Sarrancolin.
Radioshack has several good climbers to do the chasing and they started doing it at the Horquette d'Ancizan. Ivan Basso, Jean-Christophe Peraud and Rein Taaramae are setting a pace that is starting to leave people behind and has reduced the gap to the break to 5 minutes.
Things started to get interesting already at the Tourmalet! Hubert Dupont attacked halfway through the climb and dragged George Hincapie with him. However, at the top of the climb he is already all alone. George Hincapie comes 50 seconds later. Mikel Nieve and Jose Joaquin Rojas cross the KoM banner 1' 40'' behind, Bart de Clerq is 2' 45'' behind and the group of favorites is losing almost 3 minutes. A huge gap with 37 kilometers still remaining. Could Dupont take his massive bet all the way to the stage win?
Several riders had no other choice but to attack at the start of Luz Ardiden, as Dupont's gap was still growing. A group with Bart de Clerq, Pieter Weening, Thibaut Pinot and Rob Ruijgh are losing 2' 45'' as they go past the 10 kilometer sign. Behind Dupont, Mikel Nieve and George Hincapie are now together losing 1' 20'' to the French.
Frank Schleck isn't having a good day today. He has tried to chase some of the attackers but couldn't follow. He is going to lose his yellow jersey in Luz Ardiden. He is losing 3' 45'' halfway through the climb to Luz Ardiden.
Mikel Nieve decided to go alone after Hubert Dupont. With 5 kilometers remaining the Spaniard is losing 1' 15'' and the difference is reducing bit by bit. Meanwhile, George Hincapie is already 1' 50'' back, Bauke Mollema joined Pieter Weening and Bart de Clerq 2' 45'' behind and a group of 8 riders (among which is the leader) are losing 3' 40''
Bauke Mollema is fighting to lose as little time as possible as the stage enters its last 3 kilometers. The Dutch was one of the main favorites for the win but is losing 3 minutes as he travels along with Pieter Weening and Bart de Clerq.
Hubert Dupont is going to take the stage win in Luz Ardiden and the leader's jersey. The French has slightly over 1 minute over Mikel Nieve, so he will have plenty of time to celebrate.
Hubert Dupont wins in Luz Ardiden! A great win by the French, who attacked in the Tourmalet and is going to place a lot of time over his rivals today. Mikel Nieve was second in the stage, arriving 1' 03'' behind, while George Hincapie held to the third position losing 2' 01''. Bauke Mollema lost 2' 53'' and Pieter Weening finished 3' 04'' behind.
Frank Schleck crossed the line in the eighth position along Thibaut Pinot and almost 4 minutes behind Dupont. Hubert Dupont therefore takes the lead in the GC ahead of Mikel Nieve.
The gaps are starting to be considerable in the first mountain stage of the Tour. It will be interesting to see how those develop as there are still two stages in the Pyrenees. The 14th towards Plateau de Beille will be especially hard, as the route is plagued with tough climbs.
