Who's the boss?

Frenchman Brice Feillu celebrates his win during stage seven of the 2009 Tour de France


We knew it was a stage for the climbers, but who would have thought a first year pro would reach the summit of Andorra Arcalis before all others? The 9 man breakaway was allowed to get out to 13 minutes at one stage, although with the best placed rider in the breakaway 3 and a half minutes behind Armstonr/Cancellara the peleton eventually got working to bring them under control. Through a calculated tactic (ie. Astana dont want the Yellow jersey yet, as then they have to defend it) or not quite timing their chase Italian Rinaldo Nocentini who was 4th on the stage is now in Yellow - by just 6 seconds. The stage winner was Frenchman Brice Feillu, the brother of Agritubel team mate Romain (i said they had nothing to lose in the preview!). He attacked his 9 breakaway companions 6km from the final summit, beating another frenchman Christophe Kern. It was 4th placed Nocentini who rides for another French team AG2R who finds himself in possession of a yellow jersey. With team mates such as Dessel, Efimkin, Goubert and Roche who are all pretty handy in the hill, they will look to defend it and Astana may well let them.

But who leads Astana? The group that finished behind the breakaways was an elite group.

They raced up the mountain with a bit of cat andmouse and fans of Aussie Cadel Evans were finally treated to some aggression! He attacked a few times and it was good to see. But unfortunately for Cadel he was easily marked, Lance made a point of cycling up to him after one attack as if to say 'is that all you've got' and Contador appeared on his other side sandwiching him. The Schlecks had their heads down and looked to me to be biding their time, there was a very distinct lack of support from Saxo Bank for the brothers and i think the ploy was deliberate. I reckon Bjarne Riis has something special planned for the alps - he is saving the legs of Voigt, O'grady, Larrson, Arveson and Sorrenson (not to mention a rejuvenated Cancellara) for another mission - like last year when his CSC team destroyed everyone on the climb to Alpe d'Huez.

But the real interesting part of the race came 2km from the summit when Contador attacked.

No one in the elite group could match his turn of speed, Lance was not going to mark him - that would be bad manners and might have to wait until the Alps - but certainly he said to the other guys in the group that he is the one to beat. They were all there, however maybe they were happy to see him go knowing that Astana imploding is the only hope for them? Contador gained time on Lance and is second overall, 6 seconds off the lead and 2 seconds ahead of Armstong.

When asked after the race if that effort made him leader, Contador replied "the race will decide who of us is best"

Armstrongs post race interview was interesting as well "That wasn't really to the plan, but I didn't expect him to go by the plan".

Its on.

For me stage 7 showed that Lance stil has his climbing legs. At no point did he struggle, at no point did he attack, but he was easily able to mark the attacks of Evans, Wiggins and Vande Velde. Other like sastre, martin, menchov the schleks and karpets just watched. I reckon Lance knows he has most of them covered. There is a lot of climbing left and maybe Lance is just patiently waiting for the Ventoux in stage 20 for his time. The Schleks and their Saxo Bank colleagues might just be doing the same.


Stage 7 Result.

1 Brice Feillu (Fra) Agritubel 6:11:31
2 Christophe Kern (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 00:05
3 Johannes Fröhlinger (Ger) Team Milram 00:25
4 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 00:26
5 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 00:45
6 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 01:05
7 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step 02:32
8 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 03:14
9 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 03:26
10 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 03:47
11 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank
12 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream
13 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank
14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana
15 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana
16 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC
17 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank
18 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team
19 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha
20 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream



General classification after stage 7

1 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 25:44:32
2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 00:06
3 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 00:08
4 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 00:39
5 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 00:46
6 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 00:54
7 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 01:00
8 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream 01:24
9 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 01:49
10 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 01:54
11 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step 02:10
12 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC 02:21
13 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 02:25
14 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas 02:40
15 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 02:52
16 Johannes Fröhlinger (Ger) Team Milram 02:54
17 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 03:03
18 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 03:07
19 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 03:10
20 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia - HTC 03:16