The race for the General Classification this year has really seen only 3 major plays - all by Astana.
1. The Team Time Trial - Astana smashes everyone and leaves many GC contenders minutes behind.
2. Armstrong slips away in the crosswind of stage 3 to gain crucial time.
3. Contador attacks in stage 7 getting time back off Armstrong.
That aside it has been fairly boring. Stage 1 winner Fabian Cancellara held yellow through the first week, Nocentini takes yellow by a few seconds after a breakaway on stage 7 and Astana are happy to see him keep it. George Hincapie comes within 5 seconds of the Yellow Jersey on stage 14 but he is not a GC contender.
So now we have 7 stages to go.
2 flat stages
1 time trial
4 mountain stages - 2 with summit finishes.
Stage 15 sees a summit finish at Verbier coming after just over 200km with four category 3 climbs and a cat 2 prior, this is set up as a great start to the Alps, whoever is going to win this race will have to stand up.
Astana are missing Levi Leimpheimer who is a serious bike rider - after Lance and Contador he is their next best rider and is the next best climber in the Astana team, certainly the number 1 support rider and a big Lance ally. Kloden climbs well and will provide adequate support but wont be able to mark attacks from the big guns for too long, Zubeldia and Popyvich will probably ramp the pace up before the final climb and seek to drop as many riders as they can and may struggle to stay with their more esteemed team mates, leaving just the big guns and elite climbers. Guys like Andy and Frank Schleck, Cadel Evans, liquigas team mates Kreuziger, Nibali & Pelizotti, Denis Menchov, Christian Vande Velde and his well placed Garmin team mate Bradley Wiggins (with his new found climbing legs) and of course last years winner Carlos Sastre. These guys have 2 real opportunities to get big chunks of time and one comes on this stage, the other on the Ventoux in stage 20. Many of them know they will lose time to Armstrong and Contador in the Time trial. If they want to win the race, they have to attack on the slopes of the Verbier. If the non Astana riders can co-operate and throw down a number of attacks up the hill, they will wear down Contador and Armstrong - this is the way to beat them. You can only put in so many hard efforts when climbing and i am sure you will hear Paul Scherwen talk about 'red lining' in this stage - he loves it! Some guys can go 2 or 3 times, others 3 or 4. in the last 2 years only Contador and Andy Schleck have been able to chase wheels up hills 5 or 6 times in succession. Lance used to be able to - so this stage will certainly test him out and we (and contador) will find out where he is at.
A lot of questions are going to be answered on the ride up the Verbier -its is only 8.8km but it should be spectacular. Expect Saxo bank to go hard, Astana to mark them, Liquigas to be the snipers nad Sastre to just lie in wait, tapping away for as long as possible. The explosive climbers in Contador and A.Schleck will get to the top first, possibly with Lance Armstrong.
A breakaway might win, but there will be two excellent races on then, the race for yellow and the race for the stage win.
And Nocentini will not be wearing Yellow tomorrow.
Climbs
Km 8.0 - Côte du Rafour - 3.7 km climb to 5.1 % - Category 3
Km 18.5 - Col des Etroits - 1.5 km climb to 5 % - Category 3
Km 54.0 - Côte de La Carrière - 6.3 km climb to 4.4 % - Category 3
Km 74.0 - Côte de Prévonloup - 4.5 km climb to 4.7 % - Category 3
Km 135.0 - Col des Mosses - 13.8 km climb to 4 % - Category 2
Km 207.5 - VERBIER - 8.8 km climb to 7.5 % - Category 1
Hi Matt
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a little tacker in 3rd class (Year Three to you youngsters, my teacher - during grammar classes - was at pains to describe a "verb" as a "doing word".
He must have been a cyclist.
Should be enormous tonight.
Just a pity that the two umpires at Lords won't get to see it.
They have just been presented with their white sticks by the MCC Committee......
Game Over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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