Tour de France 2010- Stage 9

This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a professional quizmaster and an ardent Tour de France fan who is reporting his 2nd full tour.

Sandy Casar is the Zsar of Col du la Madeleine!! The 9^th Stage of the TdF was from Morzine-Avoriaz to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, a distance of 204.5 km and though it had the first Hors Category climb of this tour, a long descent was provided by the organisers so as to allow all those who were dropped on the climb to have a chance to come back & bridge the gap before the finish. As predicted by yours truly in yesterday’s column, Andy Schleck did attack the GC riders group on the Col de la Madeleine, Cadel Evans did crack on the last climb and Schleck did ride into the Yellow jersey that he had dreamt all along!!  But today was the day that suited many a riders who specialize in the one-day classic kind of races, as an early break away would provide them with open route to the climbs & the final downhill descent. Many of the riders did try this strategy also, but it was the day for Sandy Casar of French team Francaise des Jeux, one of the most intelligent riders in the peleton, who timed his final sprint to win this stage.

Morzine-Avoriaz, a resort town in the Alps, is playing host to the Tour for the 24^th time. Located half-way between Lake Leman and Mont-Blanc its an authentic Savoy village, situated at an altitude of 1,000m, which has retained its old world feel due to traditional architecture made of wooden chalets, with roofs often made of local slate. The Portes du Soleil also called as “The Gates to the Sun” with over 650 km of ski slopes, Morzine is ideal for all winter sports, such as family skiing holidays, snow-shoe hikes and hang-gliding. The finishing stage town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne with a population of around 10,000 has been on the tour route only once before, though the entire area is replete with famous grails for cycling fans – the hills, climbs & passes of Croix-de-Fer, Télégraphe, Lautaret, Madeleine, Glandon, Iseran, Mont-Cenis and Galibier mountains. The town also boasts of the Opinel museum, devoted to the now world famous knife invented more than a century ago near here. Another event of note that happens here is the traditional Saint-Jean Bread Festival that takes place on the 5th of August every year. The stage began at Morzine-Avoriaz with all 181 riders, without Simon Gerrans of Team SKY, Vladimir Karpets of Katusha, Fabie Felline of Footon and Roger Kluge of Milram, all of whom pulled out. The race route for this stage was one with five climbs –  two Cat I, one Cat II, one Cat 4 climb and the first Hors Category climb of this TdF on the Col de la Madeleine. There were just 2 intermediate sprints in the course for the day. The start of the race stage today itself was from a climb & hence all the riders turn up almost half an hour before the start to check & plan their strategies out. The first rider to try & break free was Chavanel of Quick Step, but his effort was neutralized by the peleton. But soon enough a group of 11 riders broke away & went on to form the escape group. This group included Sandy Casar of Francaise des Jeux, Rinaldo Nocentini of Ag2r, Jerome Pineau of Quick Step (King of Mountains jersey), Johannes Frohlinger of Milram, Anthony Charteau & Cyril Gautier of Bbox Telecom,, Jens Voigt of Team Saxo Bank, Thor Hushovd of Cervalo Test Team (Green jersey) and three Caisse d’Epargne riders – Luis Leon Sanchez, Christophe Moreau (who yesterday announced his retirement at the end of this season)  and Ivan Gutierrez. Robbie Hunter of Garmin Transitions & Yaroslav Popovych of Team RadioShack also tried to bridge this group but they too soon returned to the peleton.

Around the 25km mark, the group was ahead of the peleton by 2min and soon enough Alexandre Vinokourov of Astana instigated a counter-attack, which was joined by Jazez Brajkovic and Chris Horner of Team RadioShack and Sylvain Chavanel. This effort also failed. At the front of the peleton the BMC team of Cadel Evans had to pull its weight as the Yellow jersey team and that led to severe depletion of their resources. Hushovd a surprise in the breakaway, raced to the first sprint points and rejoined the peleton after a harmless crash. By the time the leaders descended the second climb, Damiano Cunego of Lampre had also joined the breakaway. By the time the climb of the Col de la Madeleine started, the peleton had been split by the relentless pace set by the Team Saxo Bank riders & Cadel Evans had cracked somewhere with 45km left to go. Incidentally Cadel Evans has taken the race leader’s jersey in the Grand Tours – twice in Giro d’ Italia, once in Vuelta a Espana & now in the Tour de France – all of which has lasted only for just 1 day!! As Evans started losing time Schleck stepped up the pace only to find Contador matching him step for step. The rest of the group with the exception of Samuel Sanchez of Euskaltel Euskadi simply could not match up to the bursts of speed that Schleck & Contador were dishing out. Sanchez at one point caught up with them & even passed them!! Maybe just to prove a point, but these two supremely fit cyclists, arguably the best climbers in the world were on a different plane today altogether & they soon summated the Col 2min 20secs behind the breakaway group. There was an interesting development in the King of the Mountain jersey, as Anthony Charteau who won the climb of the Col de la Madeleine landed on equal points with Jerome Pineau who is holding the jersey, but as the rulebook makes it very clear that in such a case the bigger mountains will count ensures the shift of jersey to Charteau. With just the 4 breakaway riders in front of them, Schleck & Contador soon started their descent in imperious fashion and finally caught up with the 4 riders with just around a km left to the finish. Schleck even had the energy to try & sprint for the finish, but Casar who was marking his time to attack for the final sprint, beat him to it. LL Sanchez & Cunego both expert sprinters did not have the experience of Casar, who has 6 second places to his credit on the TdF, and came in 2^nd & 3^rd respectively. With this finish, Andy Schleck moved into the Yellow jersey. Samuel Sanchez with a brilliant descent also showcased why he is in the 3^rd position in the GC and as a prospect for a podium finish at Paris.

Andy Schleck after wearing his Yellow jersey said, “It might have been a dramatic day for Cadel but it wasn’t for me. It was actually a good stage. It was hard at the beginning and I like that a lot. There was no fooling around. (Alexandre) Vinokourov tried at the beginning, (Andreas) Kloden tried… those are big names and we had to be wary. (Jens) Voigt did a more than fantastic job – I don’t know what to say to thank him – and then so did everybody else – who were fantastic today. They are all part of my jersey. I saw the yellow jersey the other day and I thought, ‘I want that!’ Right now I have it and I know it’s not going to be a piece of cake to hold onto it. But I have a good team around me and of course I’m happy that I have it. It’s a dream come true to have the yellow jersey but it’s a little bit sad because everybody kind of expected it from me… but it’s something big and I recognize what we’ve done here today. 
On the final climb I attacked to try and drop Contador. It was not a test. I was going all out – I showed all the cards I had. If I attacked one more time I would have dropped myself. I’m actually pretty happy that he didn’t respond to what I was doing with one of his attacks. Now I’m in yellow and I’ve got 40 seconds on Contador and there’s a pretty big gap to everyone else – now I’ve only got one guy to watch.” At the end of Stage 8 the over all race results areas follows. Andy Schleck of Team Saxo Bank is in the Yellow. Thor Hushovd continues in the Green jersey. Andy Schleck of Team Saxo Bank keeps the White jersey (though on the road tomorrow Robert Gesink of Rabobank will wear that jersey as Andy wears his Yellow jersey), Anthony Charteau of Bbox Telecom grabs the King of the Mountain jersey. Now Caisse D’Epargne takes over as the best team in the race. The Tour de France Stage 10, riding away from the Alps, is from Chambery to Gap, a distance of 179km. With relatively easier climbs on the route the sprinter teams must be looking forward to some action after having been relegated to the back of the peleton for the last 4 days!! So till tomorrow… 🙂 Au revoir… Email : mrquizmaster@gmail.com