Today's stage: Sprinty sprint.
With only one climb on the route and it a cat 4 before the halfway
point of the stage, we were destined for a bunch sprint finish today.
Who won today's stage? Mark
Cavendish (Team Sky) opened up his Tour de France count this year
with his 21st career stage win beating Andre Greipel
(Lotto-Belisol) at the line.
What matters in the GC race?
Fabian Cancellara (RSNT) finished safely in the bunch to retain the
yellow jersey. He still leads Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Sylvain
Chavanel (OPQS) by seven seconds. Among the favorites, Wiggins is the
leader followed by Denis Menchov (Katusha), Cadel Evans (BMC),
Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) and Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp)
What matters in other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) – Peter
Sagan (Liquigas) took over the lead after scoring points in the
intermediate sprint and finishing 6th on the stage. Stage
winner Mark Cavendish is now 2nd and former leader Fabian
Cancellara is now 3rd.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains) – Still little progress here. Michael Morkov (Saxo
Bank-Tinkoff) was in the break for the second straight day and took
the only pint available to extend his lead. Tomorrow will bring a new
pecking order with lots of hills at the end of the stage.
White Jersey (Best Young Rider)
– Tejay van Garderen (BMC) retained his white jersey finishing with
the main group. Boasson Hagen remains second after also finishing
with the group.
Team Classification (Calculated by
adding the three best times on each team each day) – With a
large group finishing together, there was no change here. Team Sky
retains the lead and they will continue to wear the new yellow
helmets that go along with leadership in this competition. In other
words, ditto yesterday.
Biggest surprise: Cavendish
contested the intermediate sprint while Greipel and Tyler Farrar
(Garmin-Sharp) did not. With the intermediate sprint giving such a
huge cache of points, Greipel and Farrar both signaled they are not
at all contenders for the sprinters jersey by not even contesting the
intermediate sprint. Cavendish has been saying since the Giro ended
that the Green jersey was not his goal in this Tour because of the
upcoming Olympics. Nonetheless, he was still up there to contest for
some reason. The question is why (I think he was sandbagging knowing
he has no lead out train and the green jersey is still the target)?
Biggest disappointment: Marcel
Kittel (Argos-Shimano) is one of the best sprinters in the world. He
didn't get a chance to show it today because of a stomach bug that
caused him to be unable to hold the wheel of the peloton. That's too
bad for all of us fans and spectators as Kittel beat Cavendish twice
in a tune up race in the Netherlands two weeks ago.
Other items of note: Tony Martin
(OPQS) and Luis Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) both struggled with their
injuries from yesterday. Martin in particular is riding with a broken
bone in his wrist and seems to be holding on only to have the
opportunity to test his form in the Stage 9 Time Trial... Despite
this being the biggest race in the world, there are other races
happening in the cycling world (most are now only because they moved
up to avoid the Olympics). At the Tour of Austria, Danilo Di Luca
(Acqua & Sapone) won today over Steve Morabito (BMC) and Thomas
Rohregger (RSNT).
What is coming tomorrow? Another
punchy, hilly stage like Stage 1. Tomorrow has five climbs including
the first category 3 climbs of the race in the final 35 km. Given the
race finishes atop a category 4 hill again, the sprinters will likely
be uninvolved.
Tomorrow's prediction: 1. Cadel
Evans (BMC) 2. Peter Sagan (Liquigas) 3. Robert Gesink (Rabobank)
No comments:
Post a Comment