2 July 2013
Stage 4
I am heaving a sigh of relief, as the
bizarre happenings of the last few days are now over. We have had
our share of surprises, and I want some regular racing now. I will
give you an example. I picked a team in one of my leagues, a serious
team. I thought about it long and hard. I have three good
sprinters, Cav, Greipel and Bouhanni. I thought there would be fair
number of sprint stages, 6-7 and it was worth having guys who would
finish well, no matter who actually won. None of the three have
scored a point, not one single point. Whatever the reason, this is
not normal. I do not approve. I want normality to get back to work.
I want some sprint points.
The TTT is summed up by the times.
Thankfully, no team has had a crash or another disaster. Let's
quickly go over the expectations and the surprises, as some of you
might not know who was meant to do well or poorly. I am basing this
evaluation on the choices for the top five in L'Equipe and the
choices of my forum for the day. Biggest disappointment was probably
Garmin, who finished sixth, when in fact, they were a big favourite.
I thought I might see Daveed in yellow, but somehow they blew it.
Daveed said he had a bad day and that is where they lost the twelve
seconds. Maybe he is right. Neither Team Saxo nor Lotto were picked
by anyone on my forum, nor by the paper as a top five. So overall
they must be quite happy. Whoever did well or poorly, the gaps are
quite small, so none of this really matters anyway. Omega is the
World Champion, so them doing well was expected. Except for being
beaten by less than a second by Orica. they did do well. As Millar
said, any team with Tony Martin in it, much less Sylvain Chavanel
must be good. Their good performance is not a surprise. Similarly
Sky in the top three is no surprise, they are meant to be a team of
powerful riders in all terrain. Some of their best climbers are also
amongst the best time triallists. What we can say is that one lucky
guy in our forum and the fifth pick of the paper was Orica, so them
finishing first was a minor surprise, although a fifth or fourth
place finish would have been normal. So they did very well, and beat
the big fellows. The paper picked Radio Shack as the fourth team,
and got that wrong, not fourth but eleventh. Even then, Schleck, if
he is indeed their best hope for GC, only lost 26 seconds on Froome.
Contador only lost 3 seconds on Froome, so his team really did very
well indeed. Saxo was picked by no one, and not mentioned by the
paper, so finishing fourth was brilliant. It was noticeable that
Contador rode very well and might well be over much of the damage he
suffered in the crash. One might say that Movistar and BMC could
have done better, but in fact, they only lost 20 seconds on the other
leading teams, so no big deal.
Although an interesting event to watch,
very appealing in some ways, it looks like the influence of the TTT
on the race will be approximately zero. Although I didn’t really
think Orica would win, and that Gerrans would be in yellow, I am
actually quite happy about that. First, it means a change of jersey,
so possibly there will be more. I doubt if Gerrans can keep up with
the winner in the first mountain stage, but I reckon he could keep it
for three days anyway. Poor Orica has their work cut out though, as
with a gap of almost nothing, they can't let any of about 50 guys get
too far ahead assuming they are serious about keeping the jersey.
Mind you, in the next few days, Omega and Lotto will be so desperate
to get Greipel and Cav in a position to actually sprint that I doubt
any break can get away. Orica might be able to loaf for two days.
Not much more to say. Looking forward
to seeing the Tour live rather than on the box. And looking forward
to my fantasy team scoring some points. In case you wondered which
of my riders actually scored on that team it was Cadel Evans. I am
hoping he has a good Tour.
