14 July 2013
Quite a day. Quite a hill. Quite a
rider (or two). Although many have said (and will continue to say),
including Greg Lemond, that the Tour is over (they mean the yellow
jersey is own by Froome), I still have hopes. Pure stubbornness is
all that gives me hope as Chris Froome had a splendid day, beat
everyone on Ventoux, and is over four minutes ahead of everyone in
the race. His team performed pretty well, two of the riders left for
the hard part of the climb. And when they disappeared, there were
only two riders left with Froome anyway, including Contador. Froome
then made an acceleration that seemed to blow the mind of every
person who saw it. Although Contador kept up with him for fifty
metres or so, after that it was all over. Did he go too early?
Nope. Could he beat Quintana? Yes. Did he make an effort to give
Quintana the stage? Nope. Although I am not going to mention this
but once, the forums and no doubt many spectators are talking about
doping again. Test 'em, bust 'em. No idea why no one is suspicious
of Quintana who has been without competition for two months while he
“trained alone at home”. I won't yet waste my precious words
with my own commentaries about doping.
Froome now has the KOM spotted jersey
as well. I think I suggested that since there is no one who is
really interested in the jersey, that it would be won, maybe, for
once, by the actual best climber. Perhaps some other rider will nip
off on one of the last two mountain stages and get enough points to
beat Froome, but I doubt it. He is the best climber, for sure. But
he will wear the yellow jersey tomorrow. My guess is that Quintana
will wear the “best young rider” white jersey, and Mikel Nieve
(who is not young) will wear the spotted jersey, hopefully without
the shorts, although the red spots will clash with his orange shorts.
But I am slightly uncertain about that, since Quintana is also
second in the KOM competition and first in the young rider. Don't
know for sure how that works.
Richie Porte seems to be back in good
shape. His accelerations in front of Froome dropped a number of good
riders, until he himself got wasted and pulled over. I think Froome
only needs him and maybe two others to survive until Paris, given the
terrain. Today however, the entire team was up front until the lower
slopes of the Ventoux, when he had to make do with only three
helpers. On the other hand, once you are on a big climb, you can
either keep up or not. Froome's decision not to go after Quintana,
when Nairo first dropped everyone with a steady acceleration, was
clearly a wise one.
Is it possible to be the best climber
and nearly the best ITT rider at the same time?
Valverde and his team made a splendid
effort today, but sadly it looks like Valverde is not really up to
that much these days. My prediction is that he and his team will
continue to attack. Valverde has nothing to lose, he is so far
behind, the only thing that will save his Tour is a stage win. Let's
hope he gives it a go.
Rolland fell apart on the climb, he
just is not as good as the best. Evans is pretty much finished for
GC, but he did claim he will be looking for something to mark his
Tour in the next few days. Contador got dropped, although he was the
last guy left standing after Porte finished his work. Alberto and
all the others have one semi-mountain stage, two finishes at altitude
and a mountainous time trial before they have to throw in the towel.
I truly hope that the rest of the pack will not be riding for a
podium place, and will try to beat Sky and Froome. If they do we are
in for some great racing. If not, then we still have some
outstanding scenery upon which we can feast our eyes. There are two
long descents at the end of hard stages as well. One can attack
anywhere, going up or going down or on the flat.
One rider whom I don't really know
well, but who is young and still in second place is Bauke Mollema. I
am happy for the Dutch, who are apparently going bananas. They have
not had a serious GC challenger for decades, it seems. Four minutes
is a lot to make up, but nevertheless, second is almost first. And
the guy is still young, not obviously at his prime. He was
interviewed and said he thought Froome had won, that Froome is the
best. If I were his team manager, given that they already have a new
sponsor and that they are getting loads of publicity for their brand,
I would persuade Mollema and ten Dam to attack. If they can, of
course. The glory that might befall them would be immense. This
stage was not so good for attacks from afar, since there was only one
hill and it was at the end. But the next few stages are a bit more
open, and my hope is that the strategy of repeated attacks, starting
early on, will be tried by several teams.
I hope you caught the one armed wheelie
by Sagan, when he got caught by the peloton. He leaves nothing to
chance our oddball Peter. He got in the break solely to grab the 20
points for the intermediate sprint. He was successful. As long as
he finishes the race, it is now not logically possible for anyone to
beat him Unless they pick up all the intermediate sprint points and
win on the Champs. There is no sprinter who can possibly do that.
Not without Sagan being right on their tail.
Question I asked myself. Why was
Europcar pulling so hard for so long? They have nothing to win with
that move. I suppose they might have been pissed off that the break
did not slow down enough for Rolland to latch on and get a head start
on Ventoux. But that is such trivial vindictive behaviour, I don't
believe it could be that. I will listen over the next day to find
out. I ended up turning the TV off too early to watch the special
feature, where the French TV is following Europcar every day, quite
intimately. Rolland ended up in 34th place today, 34
minutes behind the winner.
Did you see that Romain Bardet finished
one second behind Kwiatowski today, in the young rider category? Not
bad for the Polish rider, as Bardet is “a climber” and Kwiatowski
is not meant to be one. Kwiatowski is without doubt a huge
revelation of the Tour, as are, of course, Quintana and Bardet.
Vincent Barteau and Greg Lemond were on
the TV today. Once teammates, they were, according to Vincent in a
long interview yesterday, pretty good pals. But they had not seen
each other for years. And they acted like that when they were on,
arms around shoulders, chatting. Good to see that. Although Vincent
has not kept in good shape and Greg has.
Small incident but typical of what
happens around “the Tour as a spectacle”. The French TV has been
following Eric Fottorino (former editor of Le Monde and prolific
writer about cycling and other stuff) who teamed up with many people
including David Moncoutié (the road captain) to ride with 24 young
people, the route of the Tour, the day before the Tour. Fottorino is
quite a keen cyclist and is 53.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éric_Fottorino
The youth are from all walks of life, various colours, and at least
four women. They mostly ride at the same speed, together. I can't
find an article in English, but if you read French, google “Tour de
Fete Fottorino” you will find all you need. It is not to sponsor
anything, just a dream Fottorino had. When people organise stuff
like that, it brings tears to my eyes. Seeing the kids do well and
do something so awesome makes my heart sing. One of many reasons why
you can weep when you ride, or watch people ride Ventoux. It is like
that.
Jerseys? Quintana took over the white
jersey, and it seems unlikely that he will lose it. Although we
might still have a bit of a fight with Talansky or Kwiatowski.
Green=Sagan. Nice wheelie. Yellow, we don't know for sure, but
could be sewed up. Mountain jersey, also might be dominated by
Froome, unless someone tries hard to make a distant attack.
Unlikely. But there is still much fun to come.
The internet forums really are going
bananas about Froome being a doper.
Good night.
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