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TDF v PCM - Stage 9
Stage 9 - Val-d’Isère to Briançon
Soler broke away from his break companions on the Galibier, only Popovych could follow and even he couldn't do so for long. Contador and Evans attacked out from the chasing group, they were both eventually caught and Valverde sprinted to 2nd, behind a victorius Soler. 1 Mauricio Soler (Col) Barloworld 4.14.24 (37.618 km/h) 2 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 0.38 3 Cadel Evans (Aus) Predictor - Lotto 4 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 0.40 5 Iban Mayo Diez (Spa) Saunier Duval - Prodir 0.42 6 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 7 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 8 Kim Kirchen (Lux) T-Mobile Team 0.46 9 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 10 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Team CSC SNDeluxe As the Galibier began, Popovych and Kashechkin held a 3 minute lead over a group of 19 chasers. They led over the climb and began the descent. With 30km to go they held a 1'37 lead over Rogers, Leipheimer, Dessel, Evans, Gadret, Moreau and Sastre. Valverde, Vinokourov, Karpets and Savoldelli were a further 30 seconds behind. 21km to go and Popvych still leads by 41 seconds over the group of 7 - but teammate Leipheimer is leading the chase! Everything soon comes together as Popvuych is caught and the Valv/Vino group rejoins. The sprint brings a win for Michael Rogers. 1 Michael Rogers T-MOBILE TEAM 4h20'02 2 Cyril Dessel AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t. 3 Cadel Evans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t. 4 Christophe Moreau AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t. 5 Carlos Sastre TEAM CSC s.t. 6 Alejandro Valverde CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t. 7 John Gadret AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t. 8 Alexandre Vinokourov ASTANA s.t. 9 Levi Leipheimer DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t. 10 Paolo Savoldelli ASTANA s.t. 32 Alberto Contador DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 3'27 48 Mauricio Soler BARLOWORLD + 5'50 Mayo crashed out in an earlier stage.
GCT Garate and Astarloza formed a 2 man break, but the main action started behind them on the Galibier - wtih Garte now going solo. Astana tore apart the peleton and formed a group of 10: Colom, Savoldelli, Kloden, Kashechkin, Vinokourov, Moreau, and Popovych. Caisse had Pereiro, Arroyo and Karpets, but not Valverde! At the summit, 8 men led, Garate and the 7 non-Caisse riders from the 10. Arroyo and Pereiro were 40 seconds behind and a 37 man group were 1'35 back. Astana dropped Moreau and Popovych, but Pereiro, Popovych and Moreau cambe back as Astana made a very odd move. Vinokourov atacked and the other 4 just began coasting to the finish. Pereiro managed to stick with Vino but Vino rewarded his teammates by taking the win. 1 Alexandre Vinokourov ASTANA 4h22'22 2 Oscar Pereiro CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t. 3 Yaroslav Popovych DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 29 4 Christophe Moreau AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t. 5 Andrey Kashechkin ASTANA + 2'46 6 Andreas Kloden ASTANA s.t. 7 Stefan Schumacher GEROLSTEINER s.t. 8 Antonio Colom ASTANA s.t. 9 Paolo Savoldelli ASTANA s.t. 10 Alejandro Valverde CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t. 21 Iban Mayo SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t. 36 Cadel Evans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t. 39 Alberto Contador DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t. Soler was not in this TDF simulation. Real Name Soler, Parra, Voigt and Di Gregorio made te breakaway and were caught on the Telegraph. The lead group was 12, and despite splitting on the descent (Losing the Astana boys), they came back together. Vino attacked, and Vino won. Again. 1 Alexandre Vinokourov ASTANA 4h27'02 2 Cadel Evans PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t. 3 Alejandro Valverde CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t. 4 Christophe Moreau AG2R PREVOYANCE s.t. 5 Michael Rasmussen RABOBANK s.t. 6 Michael Rogers T-MOBILE TEAM s.t. 7 Carlos Sastre TEAM CSC s.t. 8 Tadej Valjavec LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t. 9 Dario Cioni PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t. 10 Andrey Kashechkin ASTANA s.t. 13 Alberto Contador DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 2'10 31 Iban Mayo SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR + 4'38 106 Mauricio Soler BOUYGUES TELECOM + 21'06
i had an odd thing to on that stage. Discovery set the pace for Leipheimer and only Klöden, Vino, Sastre, Evans, Marchante and Menchov followed and the rest didn't do a thing. And then Klöden and Vino set the pace and nobody follows them and they won
