Thanks Ember for the support I'll do my best to keep going.
Cheers SN, I hope so too. Really I do. Top 10, is, just out of my reach, but I hope to get at least the stage win my sponsors want.
Another hilly stage, where hopefully nothing much will happen. However, with more sprints up for grabs, and needing the money for the bank rather badly (yes I'm down to scrubbing for primes to earn the team a living), Drujon once again is sent off in the break.
It's a bit of a windy day as he takes 2nd at the first prime.
Then goes on to win the other two. Not too bad a days work for Drujon.
A bit of excitement then ensues, as first Valverde attacks (by the time I'd moved the camera to see he'd been caught once more), but also Sastre, Moreau and Simoni had gone with a little more success.
At the same time, at the back of the field, Van den Broeck, 4th overall, crashed. His entire team went back for him, but he'd never make it back. Dropping a lot in the GC.
The sprint was up a steep finishing hill, and between them, Schleck and Dekker pulled out a tiny lead, with Dekker winning the day.
Levarlet, rather more comfortably than previous days, finished in the pack.
Results:
1 Thomas Dekker RABOBANK 4h22'49
2 Andy Schleck TEAM CSC s.t.
3 Andriy Grivko TEAM MILRAM + 11
4 Vladimir Karpets CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
5 Denis Menchov TEAM ASTANA s.t.
6 Markus Fothen GEROLSTEINER s.t.
7 Alejandro Valverde CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
8 Yaroslav Popovych SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
9 Maxime Monfort TEAM ASTANA s.t.
10 Laurens Ten Dam UNIBET.COM s.t.
57 Guillaume Levarlet AUBER - BELTELECOM s.t.
69 Benoît Vaugrenard AUBER - BELTELECOM s.t.
167 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 3'17
If you want to improve your position without feeling too guilty remove all the dopers. just the ones who tested positive or otherwise you might actually win
Another flat stage. Too long for the breakaway, but is it long enough for the crash victim of yesterday to get dropped?
Break goes, break gets caught. Then Van den Broeck goes out the back, with his entire team. But also going out the back is a Credit Agricole rider from the break, who requires his entire team to pull him back in. Therefore none of them lose any time, even though the last man in the peloton comes across 5 minutes after the first.
Drujon today is on a +5 day, so we trade sprinter roles, and Tronet drops back to support Levarlet in. Drujon lets us down a bit though, and has lost all his blue bar just at the 3km to go mark. Typical.
Yay. Another flat stage. At least this one is short, with the possibility of gaps at the end due to the final kick.
Break goes, gets caught, and half of them won't finish the tour this year!
With 5km to go, Levarlet is leading Tronet, whilst being right near the front!!!
This is amazing news, and we wonder how long they can stay there. Well, Tronet gets beaten off Levarlet's wheel, which sucks, but then he finds Eisel's instead.
And as the sprint starts, he just slowly starts to go backwards, whilst following wheels the whole time.
Bennati is the winner today, but I quite like what happened to Van den Broeck too! He lost 3+ minutes!!
KoM:
1 Carlos Sastre TEAM CSC 93
2 Maryan Hary COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE 67
3 Kim Kirchen T-MOBILE TEAM 62
15 Mathieu Drujon AUBER - BELTELECOM 17
A good stage! Now a rest day, one more flat day, then a bit of excitement in the mountains.
So far, the tour has been not too good for Auber - Beltelecom. Ok, we've had several riders progress in experience, and are attempting to use that to the best we can, but as of yet, other riders aren't performing all too well.
Levarlet, currently 24th overall, is the shining star of our tour team. He's survived the first proper climbing stage, with three monster climbs, and two smaller category climbs before hand, and is looking to use his current good form over the next week and a half. The TT's are where, if anywhere, he's going to lose the most amount of time to most GC contenders, but if all goes to plan, we don't see why he can't crack the top 20 by the end of the tour.
Gaudin, our team leader, has ridden himself into form, and also into some added stats. Gains in flat, resistance, downhill and sprint will all help him survive the mountain stages to come in the hope he gets to see Paris.
Tronet, our surprise sprint leader for the moment, has had a few good sprints, and picked up a tiny amount of points for them. Still, he'll keep plugging away, and we'll see if he can't manage to get a top 10 by the end of the tour.
Drujon, who was meant to be out team sprinter, is so far underachieving in the final sprint, but by showing himself in the breakaways is the highest placed rider for the team for points and KoM's. A few more breaks on the right days could see him sniff out a few more points for both competitions, though his climbing in the big stuff does leave something to be desired.
Champion, our champion steal from the sinking ship that was Bouygues Telekom, is close to gaining that vital stat boost, and is close to being in peak form for the final flat TT. He'll try to show himself in a few breaks from now on, as he's quite suited to the hilly and mountainous stuff.
Vaugrenard, who has so far been Levarlet's shining light at the end of stages, will soon be protected himself for the all important flat TT. Whilst other riders will have peaked too soon, Vaugrenard's form is going to be at a season high just for the time trial. Hopefully he'll achieve the sponsor's wishes of that vital win.
Morizot, another support rider for Levarlet, has impressed the team so far, by sticking with Levarlet for far longer than expected on most stages. He might get his own chance for glory later in the race, but that's all dependant on how much help Levarlet needs in the mountains - and that's normally quite a lot!
Martinez is, and has been, quite a disappointment so far. Dropped in every single flat stage along with Bauge et co., he's not helped all that much. Nearly last in GC, he's just not lasting the distance to help Levarlet. With time in the mountains to come, hopefully he'l pick his game up a bit.
Pervis has been surprising the pundits, and the team, by remaining in the race. Possibly the worst on the team (though Martinez is trying to steal that mantle), he's done exceptionally well in helping Tronet or Levarlet through the flat stages. Also nearly at peak fitness, he should do a good time trial in the days to come, though his track pursuit ability may not transfer to the road quite as well as riders like Vaugrenard or Champion.
The last flat stage for a while! With only the one sprint, Drujon helps keep Tronet out of trouble in the pack. Break goes, comes back, and Karsten Kroon won't be seeing the start line tomorrow. Nor will Aurelian Clerc who crashed and abandoned.
Still to the sprint. With 6km to go, Tronet found himself on Belgian champion, Tom Boonen's wheel.
With 1.5 km to go, he was still on Boonen's wheel...!
And by the finish line? He snook inside the top 10! Amazing sprint finish.
Drujon kicks things off today in an attempt to get those tasty primes.
And after the second one, we can clearly see that he won't be getting much further, and, lo and behold, he doesn't.
Interestingly, on the first main climb, Gerdemann attacks. He has, by the top, reached most of the breakaway. This tour, is, by far, the most aggressive one I've ever raced.
Over the top of the mountain, there are enough points on offer to cause nearly every rider to attack, or so it seems. This splits the peloton up massively. Whilst some GC riders want to go back, Contador has about 5 domestiques with him, so just keeps on going.
n.b. this is after the first major climb.
Levarlet had made it, but for some reason just couldn't keep up on the downhill, so went back to the peloton with Schleck, to name just one rider.
n.b. top of the 2nd big climb.
Over the next climb, the situation is as follows, after Contador decided to attack from a long way out.
Contador
@ 50' Rogers
@ 1"03' Gerdemann, Sastre, Eltink and Karpets
@ 30' Gomez Marchante, Kloden and Brajkovic
@ 53' Dekker
@ 27' Schleck (who reattacked once he'd reached the climb), and Menchov
@ 2'13 Peloton (Levarlet, Morizot and Martinez!!!)
Up and over the top is all sticks together (even though lots of guys attack), as we hit the bottom of the final climb, Contador is in such control of this race.
Not long into the climb for the peloton, Van den Broeck attacks! In defense, Levarlet uses what little energy he has left to follow.
The early break just didn't want Drujon in it today, and kept getting chased down if he was there, so in the end I gave up, and let him come back.
The 10 others went on the compete for the second prime, and the mountains.
Wegmann would eventually be the longest lasting breakaway rider, getting caught just before the penultimate climb.
Sastre wasn't happy to sit on his laurels however, and attacked on most climbs. Which had the effect of splitting the bunch pretty much every climb.
On the third climb, no one attacked (no points on offer due to the break) and the Auber climbing domestiques made it back to help out Levarlet again.
Boogerd led the pack over the top.
On the last big one, before the penultimate climb (ie the 4th climb), Kohl was the first to attack for points, after him went Schleck, Danielson, Grivko, Contador and Dekker. No one was to get a gap though.
Kohl caught up most of the breakaway with his attack.
On the penultimate climb, Popovych attacked. He'd been following Sastre for most climbs as well.
Only Kohl, Dekker, Gomez Marchante and Popovych got away from the bunch.
Levarlet had a go too, but got no where.
This was to be a fatal mistake it appears.
Onto the final climb, Contador finally goes for it.
In the picture, Popovych is still in the lead, with Contador 23 seconds back, who has 11 seconds on Dekker, Kohl, Gomez M, Menchov and Rogers.
By the top, Contador had overtaken Popo for the win.
Levarlet, meanwhile, had been climbing with Van den Broeck again, and was about half a red bar off blowing up big style with 2 km to go, I managed to get to 1 km to go with no increase, and had to decide not to sprint. As a result, it was close to whether he managed to finish in the group or not.
Right at the back of the race, Gaudin was dropped up the final climb, to be the last man across the line.
The good news is that Gaudin has survived another 2 mountain stages!
And so we slip back down a bit. It's going to get worse before it gets better with a hilly stage, a time trial, and a flat stage between here and the final 4 mountain stages.
KoM:
1 Carlos Sastre TEAM CSC 141
2 Alberto Contador DISCOVERY CHANNEL 137
3 Dimitri Muravyev TEAM ASTANA 100
Points:
1 Bernhard Eisel T-MOBILE TEAM 185
2 Heinrich Haussler GEROLSTEINER 159
3 Allan Davis TEAM MILRAM 150
Edited by rjc_43 on 09-08-2009 11:21
Quite clearly the day for breakaways, so we send Drujon off. No chance. Tronet? Nope, not gunna happen. Right, so off goes Champion. Who, even at 96 fitness, and with 69 flat, can't even do a turn on the front in the break relaying at 80%. That's how insane this game is.
Still, he's still there with 20km to go, and then he's not with 15. Kopp, Breschel and Rodriguez are still off the front, and will fight it out for the win.
Meanwhile, at the back, Levarlet got dropped, and then was hanging by a shoe thread to remain in the pack. Today he managed to.
It's time for the dreaded time trial for Levarlet, or, in the eyes of Vaugrenard, the chance to get into the top 10 in a tour stage.
Pervis and Gaudin are first off for Auber. They both caught and passed minute men, and Pervis caught Gaudin, Gaudin's Minute man, and his minute man. His time would be hard to beat for a long while.
And so it would stay, until Cancellara and Wiggins both beat Pervis' time by a fair margin.
Vaugrenard was on for a good ride, and even in the half where he was taking it easy, he caught his minute man in about 15km.
He finished strongly, and ended up, at the time, 2nd behind Cancellara. Great ride, but he was soon relegated by some GC contenders.
Levarlet was on a good day, which was useful to say the least, but that didn't prevent Van den Broeck catching him in a short time, and then Leipheimer too.
Still, he finished strongly to minimise his losses.
Eneco and Poland are likely to be Ciolek's stomping ground, but I'm not sure yet considering that after the tour only about 3 guys will have less than 50 days raced.
Hope you will continue posting reports for a little longer time than last time you started to post again. I really like to read your reports.
