Looking back at three days of wild action, from Echelons to a break succeeding, to drama on Ventoux
Coming into Friday Chris Froome looked comfortable. He had a big lead in the Tour and as I had written earlier that day, it was rare that such a lead had been squandered in the past. Still, we held out our hopes that in the final week of racing we might still had something to keep us on the edge of our seats and that maybe someone could find a way to challenge Froome and make a Tour of it. Well, writing here on the rest day, it's clear that Froome looks stronger than ever after a dominant display on Mont Ventoux on Sunday but an epic battle on Friday proved that his rivals won't just let him romp away with the Tour if they can help it.
Friday was a flat stage and one that was meant to be the last feeding ground for the sprinters before Paris. I was expecting a stage in which we'd see the early break go clear as has been the way of it on flat stages, before being rounded up late leaving Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, Andrew Greipel and Peter Sagan to fight out the win in a dash for the line.
So if you'd told me that morning that the day's winner would be Cavendish from Sagan as was the case, I'd have shrugged that off with little surprise. But this was no ordinary win for Cavendish, indeed it might well be his finest Tour de France stage victory, coming after a monumental day of fighting cross-winds in a stage that became a battle of cycling know how, tactics and positioning.
Cycling is often a race of the legs, but when when the Tour was founded by Henri Desgrange back in 1903 he wanted it to be one for the legs and the head. A mental battle as well as a physical one and stage 13 epitomised it perfectly. And there wasn't a mountain in sight. The cross-winds forced the race into echelons and split it to pieces and only the most savvy as well as the strongest remained at the front as the bunch split in two, in three, in four and eventually into a number of small groups.
In the early going it was the pressure put on by the Omega Pharma Quickstep team that caused the first split. No surprise there that the Belgian team were doing the damage -- they grew up riding in these kind of winds -- and it put three time stage winner Marcel Kittel in the group behind. At first it seemed like it would be a long day of watching once group chase the other as Kittel tried to get on terms for the sprint, but then the second placed man in the general classification, Alejandro Valverde punctured and was left behind also.
The pace intensified and Valverde's Movistar team were caught in no-mans land between the two groups in a team-time-trial of their own. They eventually got caught by the rear group and while the gap hovered around the one minute mark for a long time it gradually started to go out as the pace was kept high at the front. Before long Valverde was losing minutes as well as his second place and by the end would trail in almost 10 minutes behind the stage winner.
And just when you thought the drama couldn't get anymore intense in what was meant to be a mundane flat stage, the Saxo-Tinkoff team took to the front in an echelon and upped the pace further. Suddenly, with the winds coming across they noticed Chris Froome was badly positioned and put them hammer down. It caused another split and it was the sprinting legs of Cavendish who was the last man to make it on board. Chris Froome, couldn't.
Now we'd gone from a battle of the sprinters fighting to bridge gaps to the Yellow jersey off the back of the lead group and his nearest rivals all beginning to take back time on him. At last Froome was in a spot of bother and we might yet be heading into the mountains with the Tour very much up for grabs. Try as the Froome group might, they couldn't bridge the gap. There was a lack of control in their group that was all too evident in the Saxo lead group. Sky looked weak and lost men too quickly for Froome's liking and the gap only continued to go out.
By the time of the sprint it was obvious it would come down to Cavendish and Sagan with the former taking the glory, but all eyes were on the clock that started the moment Cavendish hit the line. 69 clicks of that clock sounded before the Yellow jersey group of Froome came through and so 1 minute and 9 seconds of his Yellow jersey lead had been eradicated before we'd even reached Mont Ventoux and the Alps.
The was the first real test of Froome though it's debatable as to how he handled it. Did he fail that test because he failed to anticipate the move that split the group? Or did he pass the test because once missing the split he didn't panic but instead kept his head, didn't do anything rash in trying to chase back and accepted there would be a little loss but far from the time needed to rid him of his Yellow jersey? I suppose we'd find the answer out to that on Sunday's ride to Ventoux if indeed cross-winds failed to reappear on Saturday.
Saturday's stage passed off peacefully enough as far as the general classification goes but wasn't without excitement. A large group finally was allowed to go far enough up the road that the sprinters couldn't bring it back and from that Matteo Trentin of Omega Pharma Quickstep took the win. David Millar had hoped to repeat his performance of twelve months ago to the day, on the anniversary of Tom Simpson's death, but had to make do with falling away late and coming in over the line with another old veteran of the Tour and this kind of stage, Jen's Voigt.
It looked for a while as though we might see the first French stage winner of this years Tour when Julien Simon made a late attack with little over 15km to go from the lead group, holding it over the short, sharp little climbs near the end before being reeled in 1000 metres from the line. It set up a group sprint from which sprinter Jose Joaquin Rojas should have been favorite but tired legs got in his way and he was beaten to the line by Trentin, Michael Albasini and Andrew Talansky.
The winner with regards to the general classification was Talansky who with a 7 minutes, 17 second advantage over the Yellow jersey peloton, moved up into 12th overall, boosting his hopes for a top ten finish in Paris.
Sunday was the stage we'd all been waiting for ... at least this week. With a rest day to come on Monday the contenders could lay it all on the line and try do some damage with the Alps to come. The stage didn't disappoint but what it really served to do was remind us how in control Chris Froome really is and answer that question from Friday as to how he handled the split. He had been right not to panic and he could accept a small loss given what he took back on the slopes of Mont Ventoux.
His Sky team set a relentless pace on the climb, especially after that young thorn in their side, Nairo Quintana, escaped on the lower slopes. They hadn't yet crossed the tree line when already big names were being spit out the back. Andy Schleck blew, Cadel Evans was dropped, and even Alejandro Valverde began to lose ground. In one big acceleration by Richie Porte -- leading the charge up the Ventoux as far as his limit would take him -- the group was wittled down to just three as even the Belkin boys of Bauke Mollema and Laurens Ten Dam lost touch. Only Alberto Contador could maintain contact with the back wheel of Froome and just when we were wondering if the old Contador had shown up again and he might attack the Sky pair, Porte moved to one side, said something briefly to Froome and off up the road took the Kenyan born Briton.
His legs spun like a washing machine going into spin cycle in an unbelievably high cadence and it distanced Contador. All Froome needed to do was maintain that relentless in-the-saddle charge for about two hundred metres and Contador was gone. Before long Froome was riding himself up onto the wheel of Quintana and into the lead position in the stage.
Froome and Quintana continued to ride together as the rest behind continued to lose time. Then somewhere around the Tom Simpson memorial, Froome made his bid for victory. From the front he upped the pace once again and surged clear alone. As Froome flew by the Simpson memorial one couldn't help but think that 41 years and a day after his tragic death when riding up this climb alone in search of a Yellow jersey to go onto the shoulders of a British rider, here was another British cyclist in Yellow finishing the job and riding on for the victory.
Froome came in with the win and the clock began ticking. 29 seconds later Quintana came in. 1 minute 23 seconds later, Mikel Nieve led a late attacking Joaquim Rodriguez home. Another 17 seconds later Roman Kreuziger led home his team-leader, Contador. The Spaniard had clearly cracked on the final part of the climb and had been reeled back in by the rivals around him in the general classification. Contador might have realised that Froome was riding away with the Tour when he attacked, but surely he thought he was moving up into second place overall. It wasn't to be as right at the end Bauke Mollema dragged himself back up finishing just six seconds adrift of the Saxo-Tinkoff man.
As the clocked continued to count bodies rolled over the line alone, exhausted. Valverde lost 2'32 to Froome; Michal Kwiatowski rode very well but came home 2'45 behind Quintana and thus lost his White jersey; Cadel Evans lost 8'46" to Froome; and Andy Schleck, 10'42". Not that Evans and Schleck remain any kind of threat to Froome now, but it serves as a reminder as to how the tables of power have really turned in the Tour this year.
The victory also moved Froome into leadership of the King of the Mountains competition, though I doubt that he'll roll out on stage 16 wearing that instead of the Yellow, but it also highlights just how supreme he has been in the highest mountains.
And so 181 broken and exhausted men finished the day and headed into a badly needed rest day. A cruel rest day you could say given what they know is coming once that day expires. The Alps lie ahead and some of the most savage climbing the Tour has known. Froome may be more than four minutes ahead now overall but one look at the profile of the days to come and you can't half tell that anyone could yet have a bad day. Many will, and it's those that don't that will fair best in the standings once they leave the Alps behind. The Tour is at it's best now but the very best is still to come. We're certainly being spoilt.
General classification after stage 15
1. Chris Froome (Sky) in 61h 11'43"
2. Bauke Mollema (Belkin) + 4'14"
3. Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) + 4'25"
4. Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) + 4'28"
5. Laurens Ten Dam (Belkin) + 4'54"
6. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) + 5'47"
Lanterne Rouge:
181. Svein Tuft (Orica-GreenEdge) + 2h 46'52"
Points classification after stage 15
1. Peter Sagan (Cannondale) 377 pts
2. Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma Quickstep) 278 pts
3. André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) 223 pts
King of the Mountains classification after stage 15
1. Chris Froome (Sky) 83 pts
2. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) 66 pts
3. Mikel Nieve (Euskaltel-Euskadi) 53 pts
Young rider classification after stage 15
1. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) in 61h 17'30"
2. Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma Quickstep) + 2'11"
3. Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) + 6'45"
Team classification after stage 15
1. Saxo-Tinkoff in 183h 1'46"
2. Belkin + 3'36"
3. Ag2R La Mondiale + 8'03"
Other:
10. Sky + 54'40"
