Today's stage: A sprint battle
royale on the Champs-Elysses to finish the Tour de France.
Who won today's stage? Mark
Cavendish (Team Sky) won the final sprint for a record 4th
year in a row, taking his third stage win of the Tour to match Peter
Sagan (Liquigas) and Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol). The win also gave
Cavendish the record for career Tour de France stage wins by a
sprinter.
What matters in the GC race?
Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) finished to win the Tour de France. He is
the first British rider to win the Tour. As a side note, Team Sky was
formed three years ago with the goal of having a British Tour de
France champion by 2015. Objective achieved. Also, Wiggins has
completed the greatest stage race season ever having won Paris-Nice,
the Tour of Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine. Second place was
Chris Froome (Team Sky) and third place and on the final podium was
Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas).
What matters in other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) – Peter
Sagan (Liquigas) did his green jersey proud by finishing second on
the stage today behind Cavendish. Sagan was by far the strongest
rider among those that really contested the jersey.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains) – Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) won this jersey with
his two mountain stage victories after the two rest days.
White Jersey (Best Young Rider)
– Tejay van Garderen (BMC) ended up winning by over 6 minutes. Next
up for him are the August stage race in the United States.
Team Classification (Calculated by
adding the three best times on each team each day) – RSNT won
the team competition, it's biggest objective with no GC contender on
the roster after Andy Schleck's injury before the Tour de France.
Biggest surprise of the entire race:
Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) wasn't supposed to race the Tour de France. Too
young (youngest rider in the race) and too inexperienced (no Grand
Tours, these guys usually race at least one Vuelta or Giro before
getting a shot at the Tour). But Pinot lobbied for the final team
spot after an injury occurred and he made it pay off. A stage win and
a top 10 overall finish for a Frenchman is incredible. Along with
Pierre Rolland (Europcar), French cycling finally has a future other
than stage hunters again.
Biggest disappointment of the entire
race: Nobody ever really challenged Sky. Early on, Team Sky just
rode at the front and let the crashes behind kill off their rivals
(looks at Garmin and Rabobank's tattered remains after stage 6). Then
they pounced in the mountains (Jurgen Van Den Broeck did puncture
right before the start of the climb on stage 7, costing him over two
minutes), killing everyone except Vincenzo Nibali off easily at some
point during the race. As for Nibali, he had no help at all. Liquigas
has little mountains support and all of it was tired and off-form
after racing very hard to control the race (futilely I add) in the
Giro. Eventually, he tired as well and no matter he was never going
to take the necessary time to avoid being smoked in the time trials
by the specialists.
Other items of note: For teams,
the stage win breakdown is as follows: Team Sky, 6 (Cavendish, 3;
Wiggins, 2; Froome, 1); Liquigas, 3 (All Sagan); Lotto-Belisol, 3
(All Greipel); Europcar, 3 (Voeckler, 2; Rolland, 1); FDJ, 2 (Pinot,
1; Fedrigo, 1); RSNT, 1 (Cancellara); Movistar, 1 (Valverde);
Rabobank, 1 (Sanchez); Garmin, 1 (Millar)... The Super-Combative
Prize for most aggressive rider of the whole Tor went to Chris Anker
Sorenson (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff). Sorenson was in a multitude of
breakaways searching for either a stage win or King of the Mountain
points. He ended up third in the KoM and 14th overall.
What is coming next for the peloton?
Next up for many are the Olympics. The Road Race is on Saturday (I
will be in London for the festivities) and the Time Trial on Thursday
the week after that. From there, it's back to the normal schedule.
For the American riders and teams, that means prep for the USAPCC.
For everyone else, that means relax time or get ready for the Vuelta
and World Championships. The Vuelta, and the return of Contador is
less than four week away.
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