Looking at it again (several times) it’s clear Renshaw looked back to the left before he blocked Tyler. Yeah, everyone at the front is playing hard and no one expects it to be easy, but he deserves the DQ.
Speaking about bike handling skills, does anyone remember when a sprinter had BOTH feet unclip out of the pedals at about 40 miles per hours 150m from the line and NOT crash (in fact, nobody went down). For some reason I think it was Abdou except Abdou would have crashed. Off the top of my head, I’d say it was maybe the 97 or 98 Tour, and there was excellent video coverage from the helicopter. Definitely a sprint that was memorable.
I think it was Zabel, actually, in '99.
And just to make Cav feel even better about things, Thor sticks his nose into a breakaway and takes 10 points in intermediate sprints to regain the green from Petacchi. Not looking real good for Cav to bull his way past those two. I like rooting for the Cervelo boys as kind of a Canadian nationalist thing, and since Sastre is sucking eggs again I find myself following the points competition. Hushovd isn’t looking real good in the big bunch sprints, but he’s got an uncanny way of finding points here and there.
So Conta sent Andy a little nudge and shaves ten seconds off their time difference. Not much but considering it was only 41 seconds b4 and down to 31 now, Andy must be feeling the heat.
Can’t wait for Sunday’s stage with the finish at Ax3!
Vamos Pistolero!
Andy has said consistently that the pyrenees are more his style with the long climbs that aren’t quite as steep as the one yesterday. For the drama’s sake, I would love it if Andy got another minute on Contador just to give the final time trial a little extra drama, if Andy only has 30 seconds it will be a foregone conclusion.
Also, if someone like Menchov who can time trial can get a few minutes back to make this a three man race, that’d be spectacular. I’m not holding out any hope on that one.
As for todays stage, I love watching Vino, the man will attack ANYWHERE. The cycling world needs him, I sincerely hope he’s on the straight and narrow.
Impressive stuff from Vino - riding off the front like that on a flat finish. Showed some sack after coming so close yesterday.
Big day tomorrow. Really hope Andy goes out to throw it down but Alberto looks impervious.
Was Cancellara’s early lead and drastic drop off planned?
Umm. Predestined, maybe, but not “planned” per se. With a TT prologue, you may as well have a yellow jersey tailored for Cancellara a month before the Tour starts. He’s the best time trialler on the Tour. But he’s also a domestique for Saxobank, and his primary job in the race is to assist Andy Schleck in winning it. As such, he’ll be asked to burn himself out at the front of the pelaton chasing down breaks, or dropping back to pull Andy back to the front in the event of a crash or mechanical problem. And he’s not a great climber. So if (when) he can’t keep up with the lead group in the mountains, his only priority is to get across the line in time to avoid disqualification. No one, including Cancellara himself, cares whether he’s 20 minutes or 40 minutes or 2 hours off the pace when they get to Paris. He and his team are actually better off if he drops more time in exchange for saving more energy for the following day. All Cancellara cares about is: winning the Prologue - check, doing his part to get Andy across the line in yellow in Paris - check so far, and getting a stage win in the ITT - check on the 24th.
Bang out of order that from Bert - someone needs to have a word. Although, ironically, it’s with taking yellow that he’s shown the first signs of weakness.
Andy Schleck: “My stomach is full of anger. The race is not finished and I want to take my revenge. I can end it like a champion.”
Go on Andy lad 
Yeah, because as we all know Andy’s the “real” sportsman of the two…oh wait! If it wasn’t for Conta holding off the peloton the day Andy got cut off (stage 3 methinks), the Tour’be over by now. Oh! And what did Andy do the day of Frank’s fall? That’s right left the pack of fallen riders to fend for themselves and paced by Cancellara went from like 85th (due to his sucky TT “skills”) to fifth – coincidentally on a day Conta broke a spoke on his wheel and lost time due to a mechanical.
And today he’s both whining like a b*tch and promising to “get revenge” on the Tourmalet. Bah! he thinks he is so tough, nothing to it, let’s see him drop Conta like a poodle.
Not gonna happen, tough guy!
Vamos Alberto, you freakin’ Legend!
I had my suspictions last year during the AC-LA catfight. I had strong suspicions when every single one of last year’s Astana riders in the TDF left the team en masse for RadioShack. And today confirmed it for me.
Contador is a classless piece of cycling trash. Another year, another lame lie/excuse. And I’m sure he heard the boos loud and clear as he put on yellow. For shame, AC. For shame.
I will never root for him. Ever.
No doubt he’ll be heartbroken.
Meanwhile he’s got more class in his pinkie than does the whiny, boatsful Schleck. After all Saxo & Andy sure didn’t have any problems attacking Chavannel who was wearing the MJ after having crashed, punctured, & bike changed on stage 3.
Contador Apologizes on YouTube
Too nice for his own good I say – kid’s got the talent to be one of the best ever. Never take prisoners, never apologize; ask Merckx if he gave a shit about what his rivals thought of him. He wasn’t The Cannibal for nothing…
[Contador pulled on the yellow jersey for the first time in this year’s race, but said he was unaware that Schleck’s chain had come off.
“I set out with the intention to attack on the climb, but when I countered Andy I didn’t know he actually had a problem,” said the Spaniard. “When I knew he had the problem, it was already too late. We had taken a significant lead on him.”
**Saxo Bank team manager Bjarne Riis, meanwhile, appeared to side with Contador. “I didn’t see it but it’s all part of racing circumstances,” said the Dane.
“I think he (Contador) waited at the start, and then he went. That’s just part of racing.”**](Contador snatches TDF yellow | Sport)
Too right.
Overwhelming response in this poll run by AS, one of the two Madrid sports papers:
¿Debería haber esperado Contador a Schleck?
“Should Contador have waited for Schleck?”
85% of responders say “NO.” I’ll just add: duh!
This really wasn’t the kind of situation that required waiting in the name of sportsmanship.
I think it would have been extremely classy if Contador had waited, or rode tempo until Schleck was back on, but he didn’t. However, to castigate it him for it and call him “classless piece of cycling trash” and so on is really ignorant.
It’s obvious when Contador passed Schleck that Contador likely had no idea what was going on. Tossing your chain is almost always attributable to rider error. Furthermore, Schleck took way too long getting his chain back on because he panicked. He should have been back in the chase to catch Contador within seconds, but he let it rattle him. At the summit of the climb, he was only 15 seconds or so down. His biggest failure, after panicking about his chain, thus was in his woeful lack of descending skills.
If you toss your chain ring on the last climb of a critical stage, you’ve just got to take your lumps. It’s ridiculous and not at all part of Tour tradition to expect rivals to wait for someone who dropped their chain at a part of a critical stage where attacks are flying left and right.
I am not in any way a Contador fan, by the way.
Sucks for Andy to be sure, but I can’t blame Contador. Hopefully the margin of victory is large enough whoever wins that this won’t be seen as critical.
Madrid, Madrid…that’s that big city in Spain right? What country was Contador from? Oh, that’s right…Spain! :rolleyes:
VeloNewshas 73% of people saying AC should have waited.
The idea that AC didn’t know what happened is complete and utter bovine manure. Watch the clip. AS attacks. Vinokourov responds almost immediately, and he gets out of his saddle. Contador, who was caught completely napping, then responds (0.06" of the clip). At 0.11" of the clip, AS throws his chain. He slows immediately and looks down - everyone realizes he threw his chain. What does Vino do? He sits back down in his saddle and basically tempos past! He saw right away what had happened.
Contador blows right by him, still out of his saddle. He saw exactly what happened. Notice at 0.21" where AC is in the picture - he blew by Vino as well, who had been the first to respond! Vino’s first reaction was, mechanical, we have to tempo ride. He toed the company line after the stage, but his immediate reaction was the correct one.
Once AC went, Menchov and Sanchez had no choice but to push on as well. If Cancellara can get an entire stage win sprint to be uncontested, you can bet damn well that the defending champion can enforce a tempo ride
Overall I doubt the margin of victory is going to be 0.20-0.30". AS would have needed a margin of at least 2 minutes to survive the final long time trial, and I’m not sure he would have gotten that much of a buffer between yesterday and today…but now we’ll never really know. And if the margin of victor is 30 seconds or so after this Saturday…well, that final yellow jersey AC wears into Paris will have a big pile of dog poo on it.
As one quote had it, AC had the chance to win greatly.
There is absolutely no evidence for this.
And, even so, on such a critical moment, with all those attacks, expecting Contador to stop because Andy Schleck failed to shift is just silly.
Excoriating him for it is even sillier.
This is the essence of it - it was a golden opportunity for Alberto to start building his legend, and in the heat of the moment he fluffed it. Not a massive big deal, or a failing of character - just a sign that he’s not cut from quite the same cloth as the titans who could write their own stories into the Tour.
Watching the replays - How fkin exasperating was it watching Andy struggling with his chain? He’s looking at his bike like it’s an alien artefact that defies comprehension.