Cavendish wins, but thats not the story!

Cav had enough time to answer his phone when crossing the line.

Stage 3.

Sprint stage

Cavendish won.

Again.

No Surprise.

really don't need to say much more about that.

However..............

LANCE reminded us all of his cunning, his determination, his experience and his win at all costs attitude on the road to La Grande-Motte. Flat stage, early breakaway, Maxime Bouet of Agritubel, Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis), Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano), broke away and were allowed a fair amount of latitude before the peleton got working, at one stage 13 minutes ahead. blah blah blah.

The real story starts 32km from the finish though. With a cross wind buffeting the riders, eight Columbia-HTC riders forced a split in the peleton and pushed on to go clear of the chasing pack.
They were powering to get Renshaw and Cavendish to the line, but it just so happened that Lance Armstong was in the 28-man move. So Lances old mate George Hincapie was in the Columbia group and was the main instigator of the break - did Lance have prior knowledge? According to Lance "I've won the Tour de France seven times, why wouldn't you ride at the front? That makes no sense, why wouldn't you ride?".

So he was just in the right place right time eh?

Lance seemed pretty aware what was going on. His main GC rivals Carlos Sastre (Cervelo TestTeam), Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) and team mate Alberto Contador were not there, so what would Lance do? I know what the old Lance, the US postal/Discovery Channel Lance would have done - and thats what he did. With about 20km to go Lance raised his arm and sent team mates Yaroslav Popovych (surprised? an ex discovery Channel team mate that left Cadel and has returned to Lances side) and Haimar Zubeldia to the front to assist the break. So off they went and piled on the pressure, assisting Columbia in stretching the lead over the peleton (and their apparent team leader Alberto Contador). By the time cavendish had easily won another sprint, this time from Thor Hushovd, the lead group was 41 seconds ahead of the peleton.

The End result is that Lance finds himself in 3rd spot, leapfrogging a whole heap of challengers. With the Team TT to come in stage 4, which Astana is favourite, he may well be wearing yellow come tomorrow.

Lance Armstrong powering a break, his jersey could be a different coour at the end of the next stage.

Wow.

This is not going to be like any other tour in recent history.

God im excited, I think I just wet myself.

Stage 3 result.

1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC 5:01:24
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team
3 Cyril Lemoine (Fra) Skil-Shimano
4 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
5 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step
6 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank
7 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Team Milram
8 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Skil-Shimano
9 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Agritubel
10 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram
11 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Astana
12 Thierry Huppond (Fra) Skil-Shimano
13 Ruben Perez Moreno (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi
14 Stéphane Auge (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
15 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC
16 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC
17 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - HTC
18 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia - HTC
19 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana
20 Koen de Kort (Ned) Skil-Shimano
21 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC
22 Christophe Kern (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
23 Simon Geschke (Ger) Skil-Shimano
24 Haimar Zubeldia Aguirre (Spa) Astana
25 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC

the rest - 41 seconds behind.

General Classification.

1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 9:50:58
2 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 0:00:33
3 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 0:00:40
4 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:00:59
5 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 0:01:00
6 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 0:01:03
7 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram
8 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 0:01:04
9 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:10
10 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 0:01:11
11 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:13
12 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas
13 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:17
14 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 0:01:18
15 Gustav Erik Larsson (Swe) Team Saxo Bank 0:01:22

Points Classification
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC 70 pts
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team 54
3 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 36
4 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 35
5 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Agritubel 31

KOM
No Change

Tour de France 2009 - Stage 3

Stage 3 - Marseille - La Grande-Motte 196.5 km

A sprinters stage if ever I saw one.

From Marseille the riders head inland, two small cat 4 climbs, both under 2km in length) and three intermediate sprints before heading back to the coast for the final 60km or so.

Its under 200km, its flat and the final kilometer is straight and flat.
Its a bunch sprint finish!

And my ever so bold prediction?

Cavendish to win again.

Betting?
Cavendish is $1.65 to win / $1.25 to finish top 3.
no value but probably a safe bet to win!

I liked the way Milram got working in stage 2 trying to put Ciolek into the race, he was 6th, however here he might go better, i think that $6.00 for a top 3 finish is value and we will save on Hushovd for top 3 as well at $2.60 .

Cavendish sprints into Green

Mark Cavendish wins the second stage of the Tour de France

The breakaway came as expected, just after the initial climb (won by Tony Martin) however with just 4 participants it was never going to succeed. Jussi Veikkanen (Française des Jeux) , Stef Clement (Rabobank), Cyril Dessel (AG2R La Mondiale) and Stéphane Augé (Cofidis) skipped ahead, they traded KOM points (actually Veikkanen won the 3 remaining climbs to ensure himself some polka dots) and sprint points, but in the end the peleton never let them get more that five and a half minutes away. With 70km to ride Saxo Bank jumped on the front and started chasing and with 40km to go Columbia-HTC decided that if they were going to get Cav the win then they better get going. They caught the escapees just before the 10km mark - when a counter attack by Katusha's Mikhail Ignatiev sort of caught everyone by surprise. Not that it really mattered, how does one man ride solo for 10km against a 187 man peleton led by Columbia? You cant, they let him have his moment in the sun but timed it to perfection, grabbing him at 3km to go before really letting down. From there Columbia were joined by Milram but no one else was going to get a look in today, Columbia were flying and they made a mess of the peleton in the final kilometre, with the pace above 50km/h no others were going to make ground, those at the front made a go of it but Cavendish peeled off and really everyone else was racing for 2nd.

He did it pretty easily with a brilliant burst of speed enough to leave him alone at the front well before the line.

Stage 2 Result

1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC
2 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Slipstream
3 Romain Feillu (Fra) Agritubel
4 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team
5 Yukiya Arashiro (Jpn) BBOX Bouygues Telecom
6 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) Team Milram
7 William Bonnet (Fra) BBOX Bouygues Telecom
8 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale
9 Koen de Kort (Ned) Skil-Shimano
10 Lloyd Mondory (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale

Overall Classification
stays the same.

Points Classification.
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC 35 pts
2 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Slipstream 30
3 Romain Feillu (Fra) Agritubel 26
4 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team 24
5 Yukiya Arashiro (Jpn) BBOX Bouygues Telecom 22

KOM Classification.
1 Jussi Veikkanen (Fin) Française des Jeux 9 pts
2 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 6
3 Cyril Dessel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 5
4 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 3
5 Marcus Fothen (Ger) Team Milram 3

Tour de France 2009 - Stage 2

Stage 2 - Monaco Brignoles 187 km

Stage 2 is has an interesting profile which might make for an unpredictable stage. The riders start on a climb, the first 8.5km is a Cat 3 climb at 4.3%. KOM points are on from the beginning and there will no doubt be a rapid race for points. From there the race decends into nice where the first sprintn of the the tour wil be contested. The road follows the ocean before heading inland and kicking up for the Côte de Roquefort-les-Pins - a4.3 km climb to 4 %, cat 3. from there a succession of rolling hills with two more cat 4 climbs and sprints in Fayence and Lorgues.

This race should be keenly contested, breakaways have a chance to succeed with the rolling profile making chasing more difficult in the first half so a well orchestrated move could see a strong rider stealing the win by attacking the breakaway as we have seen in past stages like this. Being early in the race those in a breakaway could easily find themselves in Yellow, Green or Polka Dots tomorrow so there will no doubt be a strong French flavour to the breaks, but if they can stay away good luck, but everyone wants to win so Columbia and Quickstep will be chasing very hard to make it a bunch sprint and put their main men in Green.

Should be tactical, fast and a good finish eitherway, bunch or breakaways fighting it out.

No betting on this stage, Cavendish is $2.00 and with the prospect of a breakaway i will save the $ i have set aside for him for later stages that will deninitely be bunch finishes.

Crushing Cancellara - De Ja Vous ?

In reality we already knew that Fabian Cancellara was the best Time Triallist in the world, however in stage 1 of the Tour de France he laid any argument to the contrary to rest with an absolute slaughter of the Monaco Course - and his opposition. The two time world TT champ and Beijing Olympic gold medalist unleashed the beast and the huge Swiss finished 18 seconds ahead of second placed Alberto Contador in a time of 19.32 for the 15.5km course. This is the 3rd time Cancellara has taken the opening stage of a Tour (2004/07) and his fourth stage overall.

Continuing his early season TT form, Contador rode a brilliant race, he was fastest through the first half of the course (fastest to the top of the climb means he wears polka dots tomorrow) and was one of 4 Astana men in the top 10. They are going to be dominant. Aussie Cadel Evans was 5th and Lance Armstong showed he has not lost it, he was 10th, just 40 seconds behind Cancellara and 22 seconds off Contador. I thought Denis Menchov would have been disapointed, he was passed by Cancellara and was 1 min 31 behind, he rode much better TT races in the Giro and should have gone better, same can be said for Mick Rogers who as a 3 time world TT champ and one who is usually only 5-10 seconds slower than Cancellara should have been closer. I was super impressed again with Kreuziger, he was 9th. The usual suspects in Leipheimer, Kloden & Wiggins were there with young Martin riding well and Nibali showing he will be giving his team mate a bit of opposition for the lead rider of Liquigas.

But taking nothing away from the big man, Fabian was awesome - again.


Results
1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 19:32
2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana +00:18
3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 00:19
4 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 00:22
5 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 00:23
6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 00:30
7 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas 00:32
8 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 00:33
9 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 00:37
10 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 00:40

others of note
18 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 01:00
21 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 01:06
27 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC 01:13
53 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 01:31
67 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 01:36