Today's stage: The final summit
finish of this year's Tour de France after another full day of
climbing.
Who won today's stage? Alejandro
Valverde (Movistar) got in the breakaway, attacked on the Port de
Bales climb and was the only survivor of the breakaway, taking a solo
victory by 19 seconds over the GC contenders. The win proves Valverde
is back in full from his doping suspension that he served last year.
What matters in the GC race? The
podium didn't change. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome (Team Sky)
finished second and third on the stage and extended their lead over
Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas). Behind them, former 5th place
Haimar Zubeldia (RSNT) was dropped and lost big time, falling to 7th.
Tejay van Garderen (BMC) moved up to 5th and Cadel Evans
(BMC), despite being dropped himself, moved up to 6th.
What matters in other competitions?
Green Jersey (Points) – No
changes, but that doesn't matter. As long as Peter Sagan (Liquigas)
remains in the race, he will win this category.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the
Mountains) – Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) stayed on Fredrik
Kessikoff's wheel until the top of climbs and took the points needed
to seal the victory in the classification. At one point, Voeckler,
going back to yesterday, won seven straight summits. That is the way
to win the King of the Mountains.
White Jersey (Best Young Rider)
– While Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) finished ahead of Tejay Van Garderen
(BMC), he didn't gain nearly enough time to even threaten the white
jersey as Van Garderen is likely to be in the top 10 of the time
trial on Saturday.
Team Classification (Calculated by
adding the three best times on each team each day) – Despite
Zubeldia losing time, RSNT still didn't lose a lot. They did lose a
few minutes and now lead Team Sky by 14 minutes.
Biggest surprise: Somebody other
than Team Sky had a plan that worked. Many teams and riders have had
a successful Tour so far, but other than Team Sky, it seemed to be
backup plans or throw riders up the road in breakaways and see what
happens, especially since we moved away from the sprint stages.
Today, Movistar put three riders in the break including team leaders
Valverde and Rui Costa. On the Port de Bales, they sent Rui Costa on
the attack and then had Valverde bridge to him before soloing up to
the top and down the descent. It was a very similar tactic to what
Thomas de Gendt and his Vacansoleil team did on the Stelvio stage of
the Giro d'Italia and it worked just as well here, getting Movistar
it's first stage win of the Tour.
Biggest disappointment: What was
Liquigas doing? All race long in the Giro I thought they were
tactically bad and they showed today that nothing changed even though
half of the team did since then. Today, for the first time all race,
Vincenzo Nibali had help from his team. Of course the help he had was
a team grinding everybody down Team Sky style. That's great when
you're the Tour leader, less so when you only end up grinding down
everyone except Sky and help crack your own team leader on the final
climb when he needs to make up big time. Also, where was this kind of
team showing when it was needed earlier in the race. Nibali tried to
attack in the Alps and never had teammates with him from pretty much
the moment the road turned uphill there. Just bizarre and bad tactics
out of Liquigas.
Other items of note: At one
point early on, Nibali was with the breakaway. They told him to go
back to the group. So he did. It was probably the right move given
the point on the stage they were at, but I'm not sure, especially
considering Nibali cracked later in the day... With the high
mountains done, those who like their summit finishes can now turn to
the Vuelta, It has an insane seven summit finishes and three
additional uphill-classic like finishes. Combined with the time
bonuses, it looks like an incredible spectacle, or a Contador
domination like the 2011 Giro route.
What is coming tomorrow?
Transition out of the mountains stage. This is often a breakaway
stage, but with the Orica-GreenEdge team of Matt Goss still without a
stage win, that team might chase to set up a sprint finish.
Tomorrow's prediction: 1. Andre
Greipel 2. Matt Goss 3. Mark Cavendish
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