Stage 7 – lots of brutal attacks today (when you check the results of today’s stage, you’ll see lots of little fractured groups separated by 30" and up to 3’), but none stayed away until Leon Luis Sanchez took off on the last little steep descent. There was a nearly 10% grade hill right before the end, the peloton was already broken into pieces, and Sanchez managed to blast off on the descent and stay free through the end. It was a really brilliant piece of riding! All the favorites except Cunego were in the first bunch–he came in on the second bunch again and lost a little bit of time.
Top 10 shaken up a little since a few people got caught in the second bunch and never bridged back up, but all the primary contenders are still close, and Kirchen keeps the yellow jersey for another day. David de la Fuente was in a breakaway for about the last 60k and managed to snag the mountains jersey away from Chavanel. Kirchen still leads the green jersey, but since he has yellow, now Freire will actually be wearing it; he picked off some of the early sprint points today and moved ahead of Hushovd.
Great stage win - Cav making it look easy in the rain. Although he said afterwards he nearly fell off the back on the cat3 climb! The ITV coverage I watched finished with a really cool Dinosaur Jr track over the race highlights, just to round it off Bring on the mountains!
And of course the big news of the day is the first rider kicked out for failing a doping test: Manuel Beltrán (Liquigas), for EPO use. He’s out of the Tour. If the second test is positive, the team will fire him and he will be facing suspension and will have to pay back his former team a lot of money.
The Liquigas team will be allowed to continue for now.
Given the extremely disastrous consequences for being caught, and the fact that team sponsors are going to drop sponsorship if their brand name is sullied by cheating – it takes quite a dumbass to attempt to dope these days.
I really hope this is an example of the system working to catch one of very few idiots who are still trying to cheat. Cycling really, really needs to get past this whole doping business, for its own survival as a sport, and I think most riders realize this now.
… And the next man to fall is … Ricardo Ricco. A disaster for Saunier Duval and for the Tour. With three stage wins the team will be up for a close inspection - let’s hope we can avoid a “Festina '98” scandal.
There’s a cynical part of me that wonders if the Saunier-Duval team left because they were worried more of the team might test positive for the new EPO drug. They have been abnormally strong so far.
It’s obviously bad for the Tour, but I’m glad that little punk got caught. He has always talked an unbelievable amount of shit about what he was going to do, and about other riders. Now we know how he was able to win 2 Giro stages and 2 Tour stages. Good riddance, see ya’ in a couple of years!
It’s known as “cera” - pronounced as “cherra” - and it costs 1,000 Euros per syringe apparently. It doesn’t actually provide any benefit to your hematocrit levels in, and of itself, however, what it does is sustain the artificial hematocrit levels which can be induced by taking EPO during out of season testing. You then inject “cera” twice a month, for up to six months - instead of injecting EPO daily.
I would add that apparently, Roche Pharmaceuticals went out of their way to provide the World Anti Doping Authority with prototypes of the new Micera EPO molecule right from the very beginnings of their clinical research - such were their fears of negative publicity if it became a new widespread Olympic cheat drug of choice.
… but I’m amazed at Cavendish. 4th stage win in today’s bunch sprint, and masterfully done. Clearly, Cavendish is the fastest man in the Tour! No one seems to be able to match his pace over the last 150 meters or so. Very impressive.
Not only is he fast, he’s also very skilled. Like yesterday, he was all by himself, being closed in by others, and he only needed a very small opening to get away and win the stage. Awesome work.
Yes, he is by far the fastest sprinter in the tour. But we are not getting to see him race in Paris - his sporting director Brian Holm doesn’t “see any reason for Mark Cavendish to complete the Tour”. Too bad.
And as we expected, Mark Cavendish did not appear at the start of today’s stage. I don’t really have a problem with that, though. He would probably just be kicked out anyway for finishing too late in one of the upcoming stages, so why make him suffer.
So I was pretty much expecting the Saunier-Duval boys to be dominant in the Alps but I guess they won’t. I don’t know who to put my money on, but I hope it’ll be someone who’s on the attack, unlike those guys Evans and - to a lesser extent - Menchov.
I never liked Piepoli. Now I know why. (Of course, there are plenty of riders I liked who turned out to be cheats, but that’s another story.)
Great stage today. Honestly I wouldn’t have guessed that Fränk Schleck would do so well this Tour. The attacking at the last climb was really exciting; great racing.
The commentator for cyclingnews.com made the following mark:
I quite agree! It’s been awesome to watch. I hope people can look past the few dopers and realize that we’re witnessing the most honest and competitive Tour in over a decade, probably since the days of Greg LeMond.
Awesome stage today, caught the last climb live. As **Knorf **says, great racing. Thought Menchov was unlucky, he made a move with bad intentions, then fell off! At least he re-grouped and finished well.
The next two days are going to be a big deal. I can’t wait … I understand the need for rest days, but the anticipation of the impending drama in the next couple days in the Alps, especially Wednesday’s stage, is making me kind of impatient! I still hope to see Evans put in some big results.
I think you can expect tons of attacking over the next couple of days by our friendly folks over at CSC. Sastre lost over a minute to Cadel as and Frank Schleck lost even more than that. The next time trial is a long one, what, 55 - 60k? You’d figure Frank’ll need to open up at least a couple minutes and Sastre will need some time as well. They’ll need more work from Andy Schleck it seems.
If I were Cadel, the two I’d be worried about are Menchov and Vandevelde. Those two seem to be climbing at least as well and are top notch time trialers to boot. He should probably be worried about Sastre as well but to a lesser extent.
Bring on the mountains!