I may have over indulged last night after watching the Columbia Brazil match with Bacchus the nasty. So after a recovery nap I realised I didn’t have enough time for a short ride prior to watching the end of the Tour de France ….. So this is my solution.
Bike with trainer wheel strapped onto the turbo – towel over the bars and iPad and headphones.
Definitely not the prettiest sight.
Photo on the iPad watching the sprint
this says it all
Road.cc
When the Tour de France rolls out of Leeds on July 5, Sir Bradley Wiggins says he will fill whatever role Team Sky asks in order to be on that start line.
After making history as the first Briton to win the Tour de France in 2012, Sir Bradley missed the 2013 edition because of injury. Team-mate Chris Froome took the win, and Wiggins is determined to line up next to the defending champion this year.
Sir Bradley and Team Sky are currently on a training camp in Majorca. He will start his season at the four-day Challenge Majorca race series on February 9.
Wiggins told Sky Sports News: “I’d love to be back at the Tour de France. That’s the long-term goal – to be part of that successful team.
“I missed it last year and had to watch it on the TV. When you see it from the outside then you see just how great the Tour de France is.”
“Obviously there’s a huge opportunity with it starting in the UK this year. Coming back as a former winner and it being there is fantastic.”
If Sky fields both Sir Bradley and Chris Froome, it will be the first time a team has rolled out two Tour de France winners from the same country since Pedro Delgado and Miguel Indurain rode for Banesto in 1993.
Sir Bradley said: “To be back at the Tour de France, back in the team in whatever capacity alongside the defending champion Chris Froome, two British winners in the Tour starting in the UK – it’s going to be quite an experience.”
“At this stage, all my winter training has been about hitting the ground running in the early races. I want to get off to a flying start as I did in 2012.
“I want to perform well in the early season. I’ve got some good goals early season, building up to the Tour of California in May. I want to start performing well out there in America.”
AFP
Tour de France champion Chris Froome, left, says he and team-mate at Sky Bradley Wiggins have patched up their differences and are on good terms.
Chris Froome was stopped by the police the other day. It was a random check in Monaco and the officer simply wanted to see his driving licence.
But the moment Froome climbed off his motor scooter and lifted the visor of his crash helmet, the tone of their encounter changed. ‘He suddenly pulled out his phone and asked for a picture of us together,’ says Froome with a smile.
It is one example of how life has changed for the 28-year-old winner of this year’s Tour de France. Another would be the fact that he is among the contenders for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award this weekend.
But Froome has reached a point in his life where he wants to see more change. He wants to play a key role in leading his sport away from its drug-ridden past and into a brighter, cleaner future. And he wants to stop talking about the very public spat he has had with Sir Bradley Wiggins, his team-mate at Sky, since the 2012 Tour.
He rather hopes this interview will mark the last time he has to deal with such questions, even if he intends to revisit certain events in more detail in his autobiography.
‘The fact is Brad and I have just been on a training camp together in Mallorca and we’ve had a talk about things,’ says Froome. ‘It was very constructive and we are in a good place now. It was important we did that and it was important for the team, too.
‘To be honest we should have done it a very long time ago, just to clear the air, but we are on good terms now.’
This is quite a revelation and in his mind, at least, it brings closure to a bitter rivalry that has even seen their partners get involved.
It dates back to Stage 11 of the 2012 Tour, on the climb to the summit of La Toussuire. Froome’s job was to act as super-domestique to Wiggins; to protect his team leader’s position in the yellow jersey, often by guiding him up the Tour’s most brutal climbs.
But four kilometres from the top Froome attacked, springing out of his saddle and not only racing away from his rivals for a place on the podium — he would finish second in Paris — but from Wiggins.
It was astonishing, not least because Sean Yates, then Sky’s sports director, ordered Froome over the team radio to return to Wiggins’s side. Wiggins had cracked, after all, and was now losing precious time on the main threat to Sky’s dominance, the Italian Vincenzo Nibali.
In his recently published autobiography, Yates claimed Froome had reneged on an agreement that had been reached with the two riders the previous evening that he could attempt to win the stage, but only once Wiggins was safely delivered to nearer the top of the climb; with 500m to go.
According to Yates, Wiggins was so shaken by the episode that team principal Sir Dave Brailsford had to persuade him not to quit the race. Comments would then appear on Twitter from Wiggins’s wife, Cath, and Froome’s girlfriend, Michelle.
There would be further acrimony when Wiggins suggested a few months later that he would attempt to defend his title, knowing full well that Brailsford had already selected Froome as team leader for the 2013 race.
In another recently published book, it emerged that Wiggins was rather slow in paying Froome the bonus the winner of the Tour traditionally gives his team-mates.
Now, however, things appear to have improved. After receiving his knighthood at Buckingham Palace yesterday, Wiggins said he would be happy to play a ‘support role’ for Froome in next year’s Tour, while Froome, it has to be said, is every bit as respectful towards Wiggins as we reflect on the situation in the bar of a smart central London hotel. ‘The incident in 2012 was at the root of it all,’ says Froome. ‘I’m not sure it was that big a problem but it was all played out so much in the media, it was allowed to escalate.
‘Michelle got caught in the crossfire, too. At the end of the day she has her opinions and they’re not necessarily my opinions. But she’s very passionate about supporting me when she sees negative things. She’s just being loyal to me.’
Perhaps he should explain 2012 from his perspective. ‘It was a huge misunderstanding where I thought I was reading the race right,’ he says. ‘I thought the race had evolved in such a way that opened the door for me to go. Obviously it was the wrong moment.
‘And I thought if something happens to Brad, like it had the previous year when he crashed, I want to be in the strongest possible position if I’m then asked to take over. It didn’t even cross my mind to attack Brad.
‘People need to remember the Vuelta (the Tour of Spain) the year before, when Brad dropped off on the climbs and the team suddenly said, “Well, you go for GT (general classification)”. But I was too far behind by then and I lost the race, finishing second, by something like 11 seconds.
‘I accept that I read the situation wrong (in 2012). I thought Brad was fine. But it very quickly became apparent that it was a problem and that I needed to stop and come back, which is what I did.’
Froome won’t talk about the bonus story, confirming only that he has now received the money due to him from Wiggins. He is also reluctant to go into their conversation in Mallorca. ‘We’re very different people,’ he says. ‘Brad would say the same. But, like I say, we’re in a good place now.’
As fascinating a soap opera as it is, you can sympathise with his sense of frustration. This, after all, is a golden era for British road cycling and the qualities of two British Tour winners really need to be celebrated.
Off the bike, Froome is charming. He strides into the hotel lobby with a grin almost as wide as his slender frame and when he does complain in his soft South African accent that too many interviews are dominated by questions about his relationship with Wiggins, he could not be more polite about it.
I ask him if, like Wiggins, he rides a Vespa. ‘It’s a Yamaha,’ he says, laughing. ‘I’m just not that trendy.’ He also says the car he occasionally drives through Casino Square was chosen simply because it was ‘easy for throwing the bike in the back’. Not a Ferrari, then.
He shares a one-bedroom apartment with Michelle. ‘For training Monaco really is fantastic,’ he says. ‘The weather’s great and every day I slip out the back of Monaco and into the hills and mountains. I pretty much won’t see a car.’
As a rider, he really is a joy to watch. Wiggins’s Tour success was built on his time trial prowess and his ability to live with the world’s best climbers. Froome is no mean time trial rider either but he attacks his rivals on the climbs at a time when the race is being dominated by such specialists.
‘I like to think I’m quite an instinctive racer,’ he says. ‘We always go into a stage with a plan but a race is such a delicate thing. It’s always evolving. It can just be about the moment. It’s as much a psychological battle as a physical one, about who gives in first.
‘I’ve always recognised that the pain you suffer in that moment is temporary, and I always tell myself how much I will enjoy it afterwards if I can endure that pain.’
He will continue to endure it because he wants to win more Tour titles and prove that such a feat can be achieved without the assistance of performance-enhancing drugs.
‘Part of what’s driving me is a desire to show, post-Armstrong, that it’s possible to have successive Tour victories clean,’ he says.
Ideally with the assistance of Wiggins. – Daily Mail
See more:http://www.iol.co.za/sport/cycling/froome-wiggins-spat-is-over-1.1620511#.Uqhou_RdXW8
In 2008, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney began making “a feel-good movie” on what he believed could be one of the great sporting comebacks as Lance Armstrong sought an eighth Tour de France title; five years on, his finished work, The Armstrong Lie, instead charts the downfall of a legend.
The film, made by Sony and due for release next month, received its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Italy in September, and a trailer has been released.
Gibney and his crew received unprecedented access to Armstrong both ahead of and during his 2009 comeback, when he finished third in the Tour de France, and following his confession to Oprah Winfrey earlier this year.
Speaking about his film, which had the provisional title The Road Backwhen shooting began, Gibney says: “In 2008, I set out to make a film about a comeback. Lance Armstrong, a man who had cheated death, the 7-time-winner of the Tour de France and an inspirational figure who had raised over $300 million dollars to support those afflicted with cancer, had decided to return to cycling.
“Though he had been dogged by accusations of doping, he was going to return to the sport, at the ancient age of 38, to prove to everyone that he would race clean and still beat the field.
“I almost finished that film. Then, in 2011, I sat with my jaw open as I watched Tyler Hamilton on 60 Minutes reveal, in detail, how Lance had doped,” he went on.
“I was there in Austin, Texas, when Lance shot his interview with Oprah. I interviewed him briefly a few hours later and saw, for the first and only time, a slump in his shoulders that showed some kind of vulnerability.
“Then, a few months later, I interviewed him again. The subject of our talk, and my new movie, was not about the bike. It was about the lie. The Armstrong Lie.”
Gibney and his crew received unprecedented access to Armstrong both ahead of and during his 2009 comeback, when he finished third in the Tour de France, and following his confession to Oprah Winfrey earlier this year.
The movie also includes interviews with several people who formed part of Armstrong’s inner circle including the banned doctor, Michele Ferrari, and former US Postal, Astana and RadioShack team manager, Johan Bruyneel.
Others appearing include witnesses to the United States Anti Doping Agency’s investigation such as Frankie and Betsey Andreu and Jonathan Vaughters, and journalists including David Walsh of The Sunday Times.
The video below is of a press conference about the film at the Toronto International Film Festival last month in which Gibney, the film’s producer Frank Marshall, Betsy Andreu, journalist Bill Strickland and Jonathan Vaughters talk about the documentary and Armstrong’s career.
Skip forward to 12 minutes into the video for the press conference.
This made my day – I have seen a different cover for this one in the past but look how happy the boy reporter is to be leading them all ….. what has prof calculus given him?
05 Chris Froome at the TDF 2013 launch © Simon MacMichael
In a video interview on The Guardian, Chris Froome has said that he believes cycling is now “one of the cleanest sports, if not the cleanest” because of the testing, whereabouts controls and biological passport that riders are now subject to.
Froome explained that he has to log in to a website every day to let anti-doping authorities know where he is, so that he could be tested at any time, and that his blood is sampled “almost every month” so that it can be monitored for signs of cheating.
As well as the pressure of competing for the victory at the Tour de france, Froome and Team Sky had to handle constant questions about doping.
“Not only were we thinking abot the race and the challenges that presented but also that aspect off the bike of having to answer questions about our legitimacy,” said Froome. “I completely understand those questions, It’s normal given the revelations from Lance Armstrong’s era.”
Here’s the video:
MONT VENTOUX, France (VN) — Three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond likes what he sees these days in pro cycling from Chris Froome and Sky.
Mostly.
The American was atop Mont Ventoux for the Froome show on Sunday and fielded a few questions on the famous mountain’s summit.
LeMond has been sharply critical of performances by modern stars during their respective eras (Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador), but he held back from accusing today’s best grand tour rider of cheating.
Instead, he said Sky and other teams should release power data to be reviewed by independent panelists in conjunction with blood profiles to add to the biological passport program.
And he didn’t mince words about teams’ reluctance to release that data to experts.
“It’s bullshit. That’s bullshit. Because if you can’t release your watts … they’re doing it right now,” he said of teams reviewing power data following the stage. “They’re looking at it right now, bottom to the top.
“The worst part, there’s speculating on that. If you don’t have anything to hide, and you can repeat it, give it to everybody.”
Opponents of releasing data, be it blood values or power numbers, have said the figures are ripe for misinterpretation.
“But that’s what they said about drug controls. ‘It’s subject to interpretation’ … it isn’t,” LeMond said. “You’d never use it as a positive. You’d look at [data] along with your blood profile. It wouldn’t be a positive.”
LeMond said releasing riders’ data “would end the speculation,” the whispers that attribute every great ride to doping.
“It would be great to end that,” he said. “It’s for the riders. It would be ideal for everybody. You get rid of the speculation.”
Speculation hasn’t been in short supply at this Tour, after Froome’s displays of mastery over the climbs, the time trial, and former rivals now quarreling over podium scraps.
Riders at this Tour have been asked repeatedly about performance-enhancing drugs and surreal performances, a hangover from the Lance Armstrong scandal, the confession of Jan Ullrich, and many other bitter post-mortems.
Releasing power data could put an end to some of those questions, LeMond said.
“It could be released six weeks after, six months. … It’s very simple, actually. You take the guy’s weight. You get the temperature, from here to there, and there’s the watts. So [Sky’s Dave Brailsford is] better off just putting it away, just showing it,” LeMond said.
“If they use watts. If not, it’s all going to be speculation. Because the ultimate energy, everything you put in, everything that goes out of you, has to go through those pedals. It’s power, and that’s it. It’s so basic, I go, ‘Why is everybody avoiding this?’”
Sky’s management has made a point of zero tolerance in doping, releasing staff who have admitted to involvement in the past, such as coach Bobby Julich.
They’ve also made a point of promoting a “marginal gains” approach, meaning no detail is too small to worry over if it can help take time from competitors.
“They put the money in it. They run it the way they should,” LeMond said of the team. “If you have that money you should run it really professionally.
“I think it’s great. They’ve got a professional attitude. I think the British cycling, just the whole cycling in Britain, has been great. It’s really brought people into cycling. It’s a good thing. It’s a really good thing. The only thing I have negative to say is that part. The watts.”
On Froome, LeMond said the holder of the yellow jersey (by more than four minutes, as of Sunday’s destruction on Mont Ventoux) was a natural if ever there was one.
“Froome looks like a talent. I would say the only question is, back it up with watts. Because if he comes up [Ventoux] as 475 watts average, that’s going to be 6.8 watts per kilo. …”
And so it goes.
Asked if he thought it logical that a clean rider would eventually surpass the high-water marks of a doped one, LeMond said yes. And he thinks there are clean riders competing today.
“I do believe. I absolutely believe that,” he said.
“I don’t want to come and speculate about shit, I really don’t. Because I love the sport, and I think riders, you know … they’ve been in an incredibly difficult situation.
“I think you could eliminate so much … I want to defend riders, too.”
Worthy of the big capital scary letter.
If they win – never mind 2012 look what 2013 looks to focus on
Dave Brailsford has publicly confirmed that Chris Froome will spearhead Team Sky’s challenge in the Tour de France next summer, while this year’s winner Bradley Wiggins will focus on adding the overall win in the Giro d’Italia to his growing palmarès.
The Team Sky principal was speaking last night at Action Medical Research’s Champions of Cycle Sport dinner at London’s Hurlingham Club and also confirmed that the British ProTeam would be looking to get new signing Jonathan Tiernan-Locke into some big races.
Next year’s Tour has a total of 65 kilometres of individual time trials compared to more than 100 kilometres in this year’s edition, one of those two stages against the clock coming during a tough final week in the Alps that arguably suits Froome’ climbing abilities more than it does those of Wiggins.
At the presentation of the 2013 Tour in Paris last month, Brailsford hinted that Froome was likely to be its main hope in the race, and that has now been confirmed by his comments yesterday evening in a question and answer session with Sky TV presenter Dermot Murnaghan.
A supposed intra-team rivalry between Froome and Wiggins, who had finished second and third respectively in last season’s Vuelta, was one of the more compelling sub-plots of this summer’s Tour de France.
The Tour finished in Paris with not only the first British winner of the 109-year-old race in Wiggins, but also a British one-two as Froome secured the runners-up spot.
A couple of incidents during the race – Froome apparently attacking Wiggins on Stage 11 and a discussion between the pair towards the end of Stage 17 once they were left alone in pursuit of stage winner Alejandro Valverde – gave rise to a wave of speculation that all was not well between Team Sky’s two stars.
Froome has insisted that he was simply looking to make up time on GC rivals, having lost more than a minute to a puncture in the first road stage of the race, and Sky’s official line has always been that Wiggins was the designated rider this year and that if a future Tour had a course better suited to Froome’s talents, he would get its full support.
Next year’s Giro, meanwhile – a race in which Wiggins has previously worn the maglia rosa, winning the Prologue in Amsterdam with Sky in 2010 – has a long, 55.5 kilometre individual time trial midway through which should suit Olympic champion Wiggins to a T, as well as a mountain time trial of nearly 20 kilometres in the final week.
According to rumours when the route was launched last month, the course is believed to have been designed in part to help entice Wiggins to focus on winning the Giro rather than concentrating on a defence of his Tour title.
Were he to go on and win the Giro, Wiggins would join some exalted names in winning both the French and Italian Grand Tours, five of whom – Jacques Anquetil, Alberto Contador, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx – have also won the Vuelta. Just getting onto the podium would see Wiggins becoming only the 14th cyclist to have done so in all three Grand Tours.
Finishing the race in the maglia rosa when it ends in Brescia would therefore pretty much seal Wiggins’ place as a legend of the sport, something British Cycling and Team Sky coach Shane Sutton said earlier this week that the 32-year-old had set as a goal.
Others may have won more on the road, but Wiggins also has six rainbow jerseys and three Olympic golds on the track, plus that time trial gold in London. Admittedly, until 1996, pros couldn’t take part in the Olympics, but it’s a pretty impressive haul nonetheless.
As for Tiernan-Locke, the 27-year-old Tour of Britain champion, signed from Endura Racing on a two-year contract, told Torbay area newspaper the Herald Express this week that while his racing calendar for next year hadn’t been decided yet, “There’s a possibility I may ride the Vuelta.”
He added: “I want to get a Grand Tour in my legs, to see how I would respond to it. It changes you as a rider, and you learn a lot about yourself.”
Brailsford said last night that he would be looking to get his new rider into some big races – a solid performance in this year’s world championships has prompted thoughts that he might target the Ardennes Classics.
The word last night though is that Sky want Tiernan-Locke to shed around 9 kilos to get into ideal shape for next season – and we also learnt that his original nickname wasn’t JTL, down in Devon he was given the monicker J-Lo which he joked with Murnaghan was due to his big butt. That would be the first thing to go if he adopts the Twiggo diet, we reckon.
from BikeRadar
The popular TV cartoon series South Park will feature the Lance Armstrong doping affair in episode 1613 to be screened this Wednesday, 31 October on Comedy Central.
Entitled A Scause for Applause, the episode blurb reads: “Rocked by the recent news of drug use by a beloved icon, the world is left feeling lost and betrayed. The boys, join with the rest of the nation, and remove their yellow wristbands. Everyone is on board, except for Stan, who just can’t seem to cut off his bracelet.”
Here’s a preview clip that focuses on the moment of crushing disappointment when everyone realises they’ve been duped. It features Mr Mackey, famous for his “drugs are bad, m’kay” parable.
the daily mash – always a laugh has picked up on the pharmstrong saga ……
THE Lance Armstrong drug scandal has raised hopes that cycling can now be stopped altogether.
Future generations will thank him
Armstrong has been stripped of the seven Tour de France titles that bored people so comprehensively between 1999 and 2005.
Now campaigners want to seize the latest chance to end cycling in all its monstrous varieties and have all bicycles confiscated, melted down and turned into cars.
Tom Logan, chairman of Please Shut Up About Cycling, said: “Everyone knows that the best way to make something more interesting is to throw a load of drugs at it.
“But with cycling it simply didn’t work. Instead – and this may seem outlandish – it actually made it even more tedious.
“It’s a large group of obsessives travelling at 25 miles per hour. If you came across them on a country road you would hate their fucking guts.”
Logan also stressed that nothing was more symbolic of Britain’s decline than its hysterical pride ‘in a bunch of shaved robots’.
“Sideburns and bowling shoes do not a personality make. If he had a four foot-wide handlebar moustache and wore a shocking pink mini-kilt then that would be a start. But it doesn’t really matter because ultimately he’s still just a dreary knee-pumper.”
Logan praised Armstrong adding: “For every Wiggins, Hoy and Pendleton who inspires a child to get on a bike, we need a Lance Armstrong to shame them into getting straight back off again.
“And to all those who say that cycling is the ‘answer’, I say ‘shut your face’.
“Electric cars, GM crops and stem cell research – there’s your answer.”
So no judge in a court of arbitration will ever be called to read sentence in the case of Lance Armstrong. But for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, the jury was never out.
By refusing to mount a defence in the US Anti-Doping Agency’s case against him, Lance Armstrong has – whatever equivocation and claims of persecution he persists in – all but conceded that he won his sevenTour de France titles by doping. And by walking away from a defence he has ceded those yellow jerseys and lost his status as the most remarkable serial winner in the history of the sport.
There may be some small fraternity of true believers who still need the master-narrative of the heroic cancer survivor-turned-sports superstar and still cling to a conviction that he could have beaten the rap if the world had not conspired against him.
Armstrong’s statement repeats a familiar litany of disingenuous indignation – his record of wins, a lack of physical evidence, the “nonsense” of this “witch-hunt” and so on – but by this decision, Armstrong has excommunicated himself from the Church of Lance: he no longer believes in the plausibility of his own denials. The aggression that kept accusers in check and witnesses silent for so long has been replaced by weariness and resignation.
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now,” his statement reads.
Yet even a dope cheat still needs to be a master tactician to win the Tour de France: if Armstrong decided to quit the fight it was because this was the least worst option remaining to him. This pre-emptive retreat allows him to avoid the formal process of prosecution and conviction, and the humiliation that would have gone along with that. Perhaps his Livestrong foundation, and what remains of his tarnished brand, can thus survive in some netherworld of unreason.
Where does that leave cycling? With many unresolved questions. We may never know who were all the former team-mates of Armstrong that USADA had ready to testify against him about the years of EPO use, steroids, blood-doping techniques and whatever else that delivered that unbroken string of Tour victories, though we can guess at their identities. And we will have to wait and see whether Armstrong’s longtime team manager, Johan Bruyneel, will attempt a defence, though the percentage must be in his folding quietly and taking a ban.
We may never finally know what deals were done to hush up the alleged positive tests Armstrong gave, though we have our suspicions.
And we can only wonder who might now be deemed to have won the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005, though we must assume that the Tour authorities would rather award no result than attempt the fool’s errand of seeking retrospectively a clean cyclist in the top 10 of any of those years.
Better to look forward and learn. There is no doubt that the anti-doping agencies have won the upper hand since Lance Armstrong’s heyday in the fight to rid the sport of performance-enhancing drugs. Many do still cheat, though they are fewer and more are caught. Teams keep sponsors by staying clean; they lose them when riders are discovered doping. The governing body, the UCI, has abandoned its shameful connivance of the EPO era.
But there’s no reason for complacency. It will only take a tangential advance in medical science for some new substance to become available for which there is no test; then the cheats will be ahead in the pharmacological arms race once more.
The most important lesson of the Lance Armstrong story, though, is the hardest to prepare for and guard against: our own gullibility and willing complicity. What is astounding and disturbing is that one man – a dominant personality as well as a dominant athlete – was able to enforce his will, isolate, bully and silence his doubters and critics, and win the world’s top cycling event year after year and make people believe in him, despite there being, apparently, dozens of witnesses to its utter phoniness. Too many people had too much invested in the Lance Armstrong story, and the power of persuasion followed the money.
The moral of the story is that if a cyclist looks too good to be true, then he probably is. But if a cyclist looks too good to be true and has an entourage of lawyers, press flaks, doctors and bodyguards, then he definitely is.
———-
Matt Seaton’s article above really nails it and justifies the rant that wiggins had – you only have to look at the climbs in the TdF to see the winners are slowing down and that can only mean one thing …. it is cleaning up.
A bit of a disaster today – starting favourite and over hyped was always going to prove a curse. All the teams left the Brits to chase down the pack of 22 escapees and sadly 4 men can’t tow a pelaton and catch up with a group of 22 elite riders. Germany decided to help at the last but by then it was too late …. The group of escapees worked together well and as they were about to sit up and play for position Vinokourov shot off the front on the left and the Colombian diced through on the right – no one chased and pretty soon gold and silver were sorted.
Vinokourov and Rigoberto Uran (Colombia) had escaped from a larger breakaway in the final kilometres of the 250-kilometre race around London and Surrey. Vinokourov opened up his sprint in the final 500 metres as Uran appeared to look the other way and miss the move.
The young Colombian had to settle for silver, with Alexander Kristoff sprinting at the head of the large 30-rider chase group to claim bronze for Norway.
Cavendish came home in the main bunch 40 seconds behind the leaders after Great Britain failed to bring back the escapees on the journey back from Box Hill to The Mall.
A pre-race favourites and with such strong home support, it was Great Britain’s race to lose. Cavendish, Ian Stannard, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and David Millar had controlled the day’s events admirably on the nine ascents of Box Hill, pegging back the time advantage of an earlier 12-rider escape group, an attack by a group containing Vincenoz Nibali (Italy) and a lengthy solo move by Philippe Gibert (Belgium). But the effort took its toll.
A large group, led by Spain and Switzerland, launched at attack on the final Box Hill circuit. With no other teams willing to assist in the chase, Great Britain looked tired and isolated on the road back to London as the lead group forged ahead.
Cavendish’s hopes of an Olympic medal once again evaporated, and he crossed the line in London shaking his head in disappointment.
“The Germans came a bit too late and the other teams seemed to be more content that they wouldn’t win as long as we didn’t win. That’s kind of how it goes,” Cavendish told BBC Radio Five Live after the race.
“I can be proud of how the lads rode today. I’m proud of my country because there was incredible support. The guys are sat there, they are spent. They have got nothing left in the tank. It’s incredible to see what they gave for the cause.”
There were several notable casualties during the race, not least Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) who crashed out after misjudging a corner whilst in the lead group. He appeared to have injured his shoulder, throwing some doubt on his participation in the time trial on Wednesday.
Tom Boonen (Belgium) also had his chances dashed with a badly-timed puncture in the final 20 kilometres. A wheel change meant he lost contact with the peloton.
Controversial winner
Vinokourov will be seen by many as a controversial Olympic champion, after he failed an anti-doping control for homologous blood transfusion at the 2007 Tour de France and was ejected from the race.
The 38-year-old has always strenuously denied any wrong-doing and returned to cycling in 2009 after a two-year suspension.
Earlier this year, Vinokourov announced that this would be his last season as a professional rider.
Grand Day Out
The result may not have been what many British fans were hoping for, but the support for British riders along the route was unprecedented.
UCI president Pat McQuaid’s estimate that one million spectators would turn out to watch the race cannot have been far off, as crowds lined every street and road on the entire route.
It was once again proof that cycling is riding on a high in Britain after this year’s Tour de France success.
Some facts:
One of the mythic climbs of the Tour de France, the Tourmalet has been traversed more often than any other mountain—75 times since its first appearance 102 years ago. In 1969, it was the scene of one of the most memorable moments in the race’s history: Eddy Merckx, seething from his disqualification at the Giro d’Italia over a disputed doping test, attacked near the summit. It was audacious—even arrogant—because he already had an eight-minute overall lead and was still 140 kilometers from the finish. But his pace was so ferocious that by the end of the stage he’d put another eight minutes into his closest pursuers.
From the guardian
Chris Froome made it very clear on Sunday that, despite the brief but much discussed incident on the climb to La Toussuire last Thursday, when he seemed about to prove himself a stronger climber than Bradley Wiggins until he heeded his sporting director’s instruction to slow down, he will be riding to orders to help ensure that his team leader becomes the first British rider to win the Tour de France.
“Everyone’s been asking me about that,” the 27-year-old Kenyan-bornTeam Sky rider told L’Equipe. “I understand it and I know that I’d be capable of winning this Tour, but not with Sky. We’ve got a definite strategy and everybody respects it.”
Although that sounds like the last word on the matter, it is entirely dependent on this week’s events. Elsewhere in the interview Froome indicated the extent of his ambition and his desire to be treated as a potential Tour winner sooner rather than later.
His other-worldly air may be misleading. He spoke of a self-sufficiency honed as a boy when his family moved from Kenya to South Africa and he was thrust into unfamiliar surroundings. “I like to fight alone,” he said, referring to his fondness for the solitary effort of time trialling and for the pleasure of riding in the mountains – the two disciplines in which he excels.
Even more significant may have been his description of the decision to live in Italy when he was racing for the Barloworld team, to make it easier for his girlfriend to travel to her job in Milan. After they broke up, he told himself: “Now the only thing I’m going to think about is my career as a rider.”
Team Sky’s strategy this month, which has roots going back four years, is to maximise Wiggins’s talents and minimise his weaknesses in order to put him on the top step of the podium in Paris next Sunday. It did not work in 2010, Sky’s debut season, when his form and the team’s naivety combined to destroy the hopes that had been raised by his fourth-place finish for the Garmin team the previous year, and 12 months later an early crash removed him from contention.
This year the 32-year-old triple Olympic champion has a handpicked squad, only slightly compromised by the need to give Mark Cavendish, the team’s big winter signing, the chance to mount a token defence of the green jersey while wearing the world champion’s rainbow stripes and to attempt a fifth consecutive win on the Champs-Elysées next Sunday. But the wild card, as it turns out, is Froome, who signed for the team in 2010 but is only now making his first appearance in the Tour for the team, having made his debut with Barloworld in 2008.
Although planned down to the minutest detail, what the team’s strategy for this year’s race cannot account for is the sort of unexpected change that so often happens in the Tour. In a three-week stage race a rider’s form, no matter how carefully monitored in the months before the Tour, can suddenly hit a wall.
There is also the possibility that the kind of incident that took Wiggins out of the race 12 months ago could repeat itself. Or stages requiring different gifts can expose inherent failings.
Wiggins is currently 2min 5sec ahead of Froome, who sits just behind him in the general classification, and the Sky leader can expect to take a further two minutes out of his principal rivals – Cadel Evans and Vincenzo Nibali – in next Saturday’s penultimate stage, a 53.5km time trial in which the final order will be determined before the ceremonial procession into Paris.
But anything can happen in the last week of the race and from Wiggins’s point of view the most threatening of the remaining stages are likely to be on Wednesday and Thursday, when the riders enter the High Pyrenees to tackle a series of huge climbs.
The Aubisque, the Tourmalet, the Aspin and the Peyresourde come in succession on the first of those days, followed on the second by the Col de Menté and the Port de Balès, with the stage finishing at the 1,600m summit of Peyragudes, where a challenger will probably have a last chance to snatch the yellow jersey.
What, Froome was asked, would he do if Wiggins showed frailty in the mountains? “If I thought we were going to lose the Tour, I’d follow the best, who could be Nibali or Evans, in order to preserve our chances, to make sure of a Sky presence.”
After finishing second in last year’s Vuelta a Espana, a race he might have won but for Sky’s tactical confusion, and attracting interest from other top teams, Froome signed a new – and very lucrative – four-year contract with the British outfit.
However he was willing to say that he expects preferential treatment if next year’s Tour route suits his strengths. “In that case I would expect Sky to be honest and put my team-mates at my disposal, with the same loyalty that I’m showing now,” he said.
For the moment Sky are perfectly placed with their leader and his first lieutenant at the top of the standings heading into the final week. And orders are orders. But on Thursday night in Peyragudes, when Froome may need to chase down a last attack, the reality of those detailed plans and honourable intentions could emerge in a very different light.
what a stage today in the tdf …. So glad the dominant years of past are over – yellow seeming far from safe today as attack after attack came.
Roland who won was fantastic … And tegay van garderan from BMC could have easily caught him if he wasn’t pegged back under team orders to help Cadel Evans. There should be a ‘call of duty’ award for the faithful lieutenant although Tegay may have had to share that prize today with Chris Froome who stayed back to help Wiggins but was rewarded with a second place when the pace dropped Cadel and Froome got himself second place. It’s a long time since I saw a 1,2 from the same team ….. Froome could easily get poached by a team as a future leader so Sky will have to make him stay …..
If there was any lingering doubt about the strength of the Sky team, then wonder no more: the British outfit is the dominant force in the 99th Tour de France. The stage to La Tourssuire might have been won by a Frenchman – with Pierre Rolland pulling off another tremendous climbing coup to go alongside his triumph at Alpe d’Huez from the 2011 Tour – but Great Britain is in complete command of the general classification. Wiggins increased his advantage over last year’s champion, Cadel Evans, after the Australian suffered a little crisis on the final climb and had to be nursed home by the leader of the youth classification Tejay van Garderen. While Evans battled his way up the last mountain, Rolland danced ahead to an emphatic victory and then came the battle for minor places on GC, which was won by Christopher Froome who now moves up to second overall, 18 seconds ahead of another of today’s aggressors, Vincenzo Nibali. The result sheet tells much of the story but it was a race with many attacks, several winners and quite a few losers.
The progress reportThe 148km 11th stage of the 2012 Tour began at 1.17pm with 174 riders in the race. The non-starter was Fabian Cancellara (RNT). The mountains on the course were ‘HC’ col de la Madeleine (2,000m high at 40km), ‘HC’ col de la Croix de Fer (2,067m high at 93km), category-two col du Molland (1,638m at 113km) and the finishing climb to La Toussuire (category-one, at the end of the 148km stage). The final rise offered double points in the climbing classification. The intermediate sprint was in St-Etienne-de-Cuines (at 70km).
The attacks begin earlyGesink attacked the peloton as soon as the stage began. He was joined by 30 others and, at 10km, they had a lead of 20”. Others in the early move were: Burghardt, Cummings, Gilbert (BMC), Popovych (RNT), Malacarne (EUC), Koren (LIQ), Martin (GRS), Cherel and Riblon (ALM), Hoogerland (VCD), Paolini (KAT), Karpets (MOV), Sorensen and Sorensen (STB), Grivko, Iglinskiy, Kieserlovski and Vinokourov (AST), De Weert and Pineau (OPQ)… there were others but by the 20km mark there were just seven in the lead: Koren, Martin, Riblon, Hoogerland, C. Sorensen, Kieserlovski and Vinokourov. Valverde (MOV) chased them down at 23km. At 24km the eight leaders were joined by: Kiryienka, Horner, Malacarne, Kadri, Basso, P. Velits and Weening. Boasson Hagen led the peloton all the way up the Madeleine climb. Kessiakoff tries to take back the polka-dot jerseyAt the top of the Madeleine there were 28 with a lead of 2’55” on the peloton. The lead group was composed of: Moinard (BMC), Horner (RNT), Kern, Malacarne and Rolland (EUC), Scarponi and Marzano (LAM), Koren and Basso (LIQ), Martin (GRS), Kadri and Riblon (ALM), Feillu (SAU), Hoogerland (VCD), Ten Dam and Kruiswijk (RAB), Valverde and Kiryienka (MOV), C. Sorensen (STB), Kessiakoff, Kiserlovski and Vinokourov (AST), Leipheimer and P. Velits (OPQ), Weening (OGE). Velits led Kessiakoff over the top to claim the 25 points and they continued their attack on the 19km downhill. They led the Valverde group by as much as 50” but the lead pair was caught by the other escapees at 63km. Col de la Croix de Fer: Evans goes on the attackEarly on the second climb, there was a regrouping at the front and 22 were in the lead: Moinard, Horner, Kern, Rolland, Scarponi, Marzano, Basso, Martin, Kadri, Trofimov, Ten Dam, Valverde, Kiryienka, Sorensen, Kessiakoff, Kisierlovski, Vinokourov, Leipheimer, Veltis and Weening. They led the peloton by 2’30”. Scarponi, Marzano and Moinard were the first to drop out of the lead group. With 15km to climb Leipheimer also quit his efforts in the lead group, then Valverde and Basso.At 79km, van Garderen (BMC) attacked the yellow jersey’s group but there was no reaction from Wiggins et al. It was clearly a plan hatched by the team of the defending champion for, at 81km, Evans launched an attack and soon caught his team-mate. They worked together to build a maximum advantage on the yellow jersey of 20” but were caught after 5km on the attack. Rogers was responsible for the capture, leading Wiggins, Porte and Froome up to Evans and the white jersey without once getting out of the saddle to increase his tempo.Rolland took the ‘Souvenir Henri Desgrange’ by beating Kessiakoff in a tight sprint for honours atop the highest pass in the Alps. The yellow jersey was 2’10” behind at the top of the col de Croix de Fer. Evans cracks on the final climb slips down the rankings…After a shortlived attack by Velits, Rolland and Kiserlovksi found themselves at the front of the stage with 40km to go. They were caught by Kiryienka at 39km to go and, at the top, this was the situation: Rolland was first (taking 5pts) with his trio in tact. Then came Sorensen at 10”, Ten Dam at 1’00”, Velits at 1’25”, Martin and Kessiakoff at 2’05”, Horner at 2’38”, Pinot at 3’08” and the peloton at 3’20”. Rolland crashed on a left turn on the descent, 26km from the finish but he rejoined the lead with 22km to go. The four leaders started the final climb with an advantage of 1’15” to Ten Dam and Velits, 2’55” to Martin and Kessiakoff, and 3’30” to the peloton. There were 16 in the yellow jersey group: Wiggins, Porte, Froome, Evans, van Garderen, Schleck, Horner, Zubeldia, Kloden, Nibali, Roche, Coppel, Pinot, van den Broeck, Cobo and Brajkovic. Nibali attacked the yellow jersey with 12km to go, eliminating all but Evans, Wiggins, Froome, Schleck and Van Garderen from the yellow jersey group. He was caught after 1.5km but the Italian attacked again with 10km to go. He joined van den Broeck, Brajkovic and Pinot. With 6.5km to go, Evans was dropped from the yellow jersey group. Once Wiggins and co caught Nibali (around 4.5km to go) there seemed to be a discussion between the Sky riders and Froome attacked shortly afterwards. Pinot reacted quickly and so too did the others but Wiggins couldn’t match the pace. Froome quickly quit his effort but still this group was able to gain time on Evans who was struggling to hold the wheel of van Garderen. Eventually the Australian would lost 1’26” to the overall leader meaning he slipped down the rankings and Sky assumed first and second place overall, with Froome finishing two seconds ahead of his leader, Wiggins. Rolland races to another impressive mountain stage winPierre Rolland was on his own at the front of the stage with 10km to go and he never looked back. Just like last year at Alpe d’Huez he not only held off the challenge of his former escape companions, he put time into them and ultimately was the only rider to finish the stage ahead of the yellow jersey’s group. Wiggins managed his strength and was able to ride the final section of the climb in the slipstream of Froome but, in the closing 500m the domestique was given the nod to race for second place honours and improve his position on GC. Pinot outsprinted Froome for second place and gave the host nation a first-second in the 11th stage. The yellow jersey was sixth over the line – in the same time as Nibali who moved up to third overall. Cadel Evans slipped from 2nd to fourth overall, 3’19” behind Wiggins.Bradley Wiggins leads his team-mate Froome by 2’05” at the top of the general classification and he will wear the yellow jersey in stage 12.
Thomas Voeckler knows how to get the maximum out of himself at the Tour de France. He’s out of contention for another stint in the yellow jersey or a top four overall finish in the race like he achieved in 2011 but on the day to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine he did enough to earn three appearances on the podium. First, he led over the first ‘hors categorie’ climb of the 99th Tour – the Col du Grand Colombier to take the lead of the climbing classification, then he was voted the most aggressive rider of the 10th stage and, ultimately, he timed his race to the finish line to perfection. He won the stage from a break that took almost an hour to establish on a day when the average speed or the first hour was a formidable 49.8km/h. There were 25 men in that move and, by the end, only 10 of them would finish ahead of the yellow jersey’s group. The best was Voeckler. He is a racer who puts on a show. The French adore him, and he duly respond to their cheers. It was his third stage win in the race.
For all the action, the first stage in the high mountains yielded little change to the top 10. Okay, Vincenzo Nibali demonstrated that he’s willing to try attacking when he can and the downhill after the Grand Colombier served him well but it was too far from the finish for real gains to be made. He had to succumb to the strength of the Sky team which again did everything required to get their leader one day closer to the ultimate objective: victory in the 2012 Tour.
Kite*Surf*Bike*Rambling 