Stage 2: Utrecht > Zélande, 166km
Remember the days when the first week of a Tour de France was one for the sprinters and a quiet one for the GC contenders; one in which they could get their prologue/time-trial out of the way then sit back in the peloton and wait for the mountains, or the next time-trial as it where? Well those days are gone.
Sure the result will show that today did belong to a sprinter, won in fine style by the oft written-off Andrea Greipel, but this was no stage for the the GC men to hide out in the bowels of the peloton...those who did paid dearly as the winds blew and the rains lashed and the bunch was split to pieces much to the joy of everyone in an armchair at home and the organisors who had been hoping for this very kind of chaos.
The big story wasn't so much that the Yellow jersey of Rohan Dennis had failed to make the split, but that Nairo Quintana had been left behind, and later, the defending champion Vincenzo Nibali. The two groups behind eventually came together but a cohesive chase could not be organised, a little panic set in and by the the line those two contenders -- half of the 'big four' -- had lost themselves 1 minute, 28 seconds. It hasn't quite thrown their GC hopes into turmoil just yet, Nibali could easily make that back on the cobbles should his luck come back (it seems today he missed the split due to a crash), whereas Quintana was always expected to struggle in the winds and on this opening week and will feel that 1'28" is a loss limited that he can fight back on come the mountains. Of course, it must be remembered that this has come on just the second stage and with so much to come this first week before they get near the mountains, Nibali and Quintana can scarcely afford to lose anymore time.
And all this was just the drama involving the race favourites, there was still the passing of the Yellow jersey from Dennis to Cancellara and the sprint 'scandal' that appeared to show Mark Cavendish sit up yards from the line, giving Cancellara the third place time bonus he required to leap frog Tony Martin -- team mate of Cavendish -- to take Yellow.
Martin was gutted after the stage and Cavendish came in for some social media flack. He later bit back on social media himself saying that "If I could hang on for 3rd, I could hang on for the win... Some imbeciles think cycling is a computer game. Problem is, social media & TV are platforms for them to be heard. Gutted for @tonymartin85."
And he isn't wrong. It's easy to criticise him from the comfort of the living room, but until you're in that kind of position it's unfair to say he simply quit on the sprint. The Omega Pharma Quick-Step team made a hash of the finish collectively, and not for the fist time.
They had six men in a 26 man group...it should have been ideal for their lead-out train with nobody to get in their way and only Greipel and Sagan to worry about. Yet their early over-exuberant efforts to maintain the lead over the chasing pack left them tired and left them delivering Cavendish to the line with 300 metres still to go. It was too far out for Cavendish to hold and as the others came past him in the final 50 metres, the lactic acid build up; his heart-rate beyond the max, clearly cracked him and he had to sit up. And even beyond that, when you win 25 stages in the Tour de France your natural instinct is win or bust and in those crucial seconds with your mind and heart on, or over, the limit you're not thinking of the Yellow jersey permutations.
The criticism of Cavendish was the easy cop out, but the entire squad must look at themselves, even Tony Martin himself who spent a lot of time on the front when a team like Sky hid safely in the pack, benefited from the time gap but saved legs.
Speaking of Sky, some wondered why they hadn't worked as much as others, but with only two men alongside Froome and far more on teams like Quick-Step, BMC and Tinkoff-Saxo, they felt the burden was on them to do more of the work. Should Froome have run into a problem, he needed the legs of Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard to be fresh. Likewise in the coming days, on the cobbles to come, Froome will need his team fresh, likewise at next weeks team-time-trial. Expending too much now for a handful more seconds was a risk not worth taking. As it turned out, they took time on rivals without expending too much...it was a successful day.
They say the first week of this Tour is like a bunch of one-day classic races in a row, and they aren't wrong. Today lived up to it when the winds blew and tomorrow they'll hit the Mur de Huy from the La Flèche Wallonne race and once again the contenders will have to be alert as time gaps and drama is guaranteed.
My tip is Peter Sagan but he sits 33 seconds behind Cancellara on GC and whether he can take enough time on the big Swiss rider to go with the time-bonus to take Yellow remains to be seen. Cancellara should maintain contact with Martin and Doumoulin meaning he only need limit his losses to the little men to stay in Yellow. Others to look out for are Alejandro Valverde, Michal Kwiatkowski and Dan Martin though Valverde spent a lot of yesterday chasing for Quintana and Kwiatkowski spent a lot of time pulling on the front, so we'll see how their legs are.
If the wind stays down, tomorrow should be somewhat uneventful for the first 158 of the 159.5km on tap, but it will all kick off on Huy and it will, no doubt, leave us with a lot more talking points and permutations for the overall standings.
| Result: | Classement: |
| 1. Greipel (LTS) in 3h29'3" 2. Sagan (TCS) 3. Cancellara (TFR) 4. Cavendish (EQS) 5. Oss (BMC) 6. Van Avermaet (BMC) all s.t. | 1. Cancellara (TFR) in 3h44'1" 2. Martin (EQS) +3" 3. Dumoulin (TGA) +6" 4. Sagan (TCS) +33" 5. Thomas (SKY) +35" 6. Oss (BMC) +42" --- 10. Froome (SKY) +48" 14. Contador (TCS) +1' 33. Nibali (AST) +2'9" 44. Quintana (MOV) +2'27" |
