“Voeckler gives Europcar their 1st stage win at TdF 2012”

This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a professional quizmaster and an ardent Tour de France fan who is reporting his 4th tour

Thomas Voeckler, the spirited Frenchman on the Europcar team, who has an excellent history in the tour in the past, having won stages and also worn the Yellow Jersey, showed today that on form, he is a class act. The most aggressive rider today, in the later half of the race, he kept a relentless pace in the front, without ever thinking of his displays in the last 10 days, none of which were inspiring in the least, to dish out a painful but rewarding ride in the end. Speaking to the media after winning, he said, “I’m 33 years old and this is my 10th Tour de France, so I fully appreciate what is happening to me. I knew that the King of the Mountains jersey was possible, but I wanted to win the stage.” About his breakaway partners, he was not too kind as he said, “No one would help me push on the climbs, they just sat on my wheel. That annoyed me, but it also inspired me. Coming into the finish, I waited for my moment and then went. When I crossed that line, I felt such a rush. My knees hurt, everything hurts, but I couldn’t give up.” The 10^th road Stage of the 99^th Tour de France was from Mâcon to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, a distance of 194.5kms.  After a rest day, which also had its share of excitement, as the French police raided the hotel where the Cofidis team was staying and took their rider Remy de Gregorio away on charges of doping, the peloton started with 175 riders. The two other riders who did not start were Tony Martin, the TT world champion & Mathew Lloyd, both due to injuries suffered in the tour. (for the record, Cofidis team has suspended the rider, till further notice, and also stated that he was taken into custody for something which he has done in 2011, when he was part of Team Astana and has no effect on their present campaign)

It was the trio of Cyril Lemoine of Saur-Sojasun’s, Peter Sagan of Liqigas Cannondale & Andrei Grivko of Team Astana, who started the breakaway formation today. Soon another 24 riders joined them, and this merry band of riders slowly tried to pull away. With lots of elevations in the roads today, and at least 3 mountain peaks to be ridden, including the Hors category Grand Colombier, it was becoming an interesting escape group. The first sprint point of the day saw Matt Goss of Orica Greenedge, beat Sagan in a sprint, thus cutting Sagan’s lead in the Green jersey to only 27 points.

On the climb to the Grand Colombier, the breakaway was split into pieces by the pace of Michael Scarponi of Lampre-ISD. Consolidating this, Luis Leon Sanchez of Rabobank also attacked and soon a lead group of 5 riders with Scarponi, Voeckler, JensVoigt of RadioShack Nissan&Dries Devenyns of Omega Pharma- QuickStep resulted. At the final stage of the climb, Voeckler ran full tilt on his gas and won the summit climb. But nearing the summit of the climb, Voigt did get left back and it was the remaining 4 riders who started the descent first. In the main leaders group, it was action all the way, with Team Sky keeping a tight leash on race from the front. Richie Porte & Edvald Boasson Hagan were the Team Sky riders, who bore the brunt of the pace making today. Once they all reached the summit of Grand Colombier, it was the turn of Nibali to attack. A daredevil descender, with superb control, he raced away from the group and even built a lead of over a minute on the Yellow Jersey group, but was chased down by Team Sky in the end. The only leading group rider, who escapedwas Jurgen van den Broeck, who with an excellent ride made up some time in the end to move to 8^th spot on the leader board.

Meanwhile, at the business end of the stage, Jens Voigt, the oldest rider in the tour this year, chased down the leading four in the descent. But with the finish line coming up, it was cat and mouse game on who would do the final work of putting in the last kick. A yo-yo race amongst these 5 saw Devenyns, jump away with the last 3km to the line remaining. With others not deciding to chase, Voigt, did the job of chasing Devenyns down. But by the time he did that, he had expended his last reserve of energy, and when Voeckler in his typical fashion made a run for the line with 800m to go, he just could not respond. Scarponi did try, but came in second by 3secs, while Voigt came third 10secs behind Voeckler. Sanchez cracked in the last 500m and so did Devenyns. Of the peleton, the main leaders all came in at the same time, with Cadel Evans trying very hard to get a couple of seconds ahead of Wiggins, something which did not pan out.

The leader board did not change for the top 5, despite Nibali’s valiant effort. Wiggins still leads the race, with Evans behind him by 1’53”, followed by Froome, another 14secs behind. Nibali & Menchov round off the top five overall.The Yellow Jersey of the race leader continues with Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky. The Green Jersey for the points leader continues with Peter Sagan of Liqigas Cannondale. The White Jersey, for the best young rider also continues with Tejay van Garderen of BMC Racing team, while Thomas Voeckler of Europcar dons the King of the Mountain polka dotted Jersey. Voeckler who for the last two months had complained about knee pain and at one stage had almost given up his hopes to race in this year’s tour also hit out at his detractors. “Although some people said there was nothing wrong with me, everything I said about my knee in the run-up to the Tour was true. I wasn’t acting. I always say what I feel and when asked a question I tell people exactly how it is. I spent eight days at home doing nothing in June. But I don’t care what people say about me,” said Voeckler with a grin on his very tired face. Having defended his Yellow Jersey quite comfortably today Bradley Wiggins said, “When Nibali teamed up with Sagan it did look as though it had the potential to work, but we do have to gamble a little bit here, we can’t just chase everything that moves and fortunately, we didn’t panic. We got down that descent, rode hard on the next climb and got him back so it all worked out. “You’ve got to continually calculate in your head and be quite businesslike and not let the emotion of the moment get to you. But Jurgen van den Broeck is 5min down so we could afford to let him slip away slightly. Nibali went alone and I knew that he would have had to make quite a big effort in the last 30 kms or so to stay away alone. So we sort of gambled a bit, thinking that we’d be able to peg him back, which we did. We kept cool in those moments and it’s times like that that certainly will help us win the Tour. But they are moments when we could potentially lose the Tour as well. Expressing his views about his team, he said, “I can’t express my appreciation to the work of my team-mates. ‘Thank-you’ is not enough for the work that they do. But we’ve been together all year, we’ve been training together, we’ve been rooming together and they’re a fantastic group and I certainly wouldn’t be in this position without them.”

The finishing town of Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, is actually a European city with lots of cross cultural variations. It has a ultra modern TVG station, which all who come to the city must check out. Its connections to Geneva and Paris, yet the country feel of its town is what makes this town unique. Some of the gastronomy is also unique to here, and one must check out the Pike dumplings in Nantua sauce dish, which is a highlight from here.

The 12^thstage of TdF will be from Albertville to La Toussuire – Les Sybelles, a distance of 148kms, making it one of the shortest race route, in terms of distances. But after seeing the course, and knowing that the riders will have to climb the La Madeleine, La Croix de Fer and Le Mollard in succession and then negotiate their way up the final climb of La Toussuire,me thinks,some of the big names will be caught with little energy to make the final kick. Will Basso help Nibali nail some time into the Yellow Jersey? Will BMC Racing team put its riders to help Evans climb away from Wiggins? Will the usual escape artists – Chavanel, Vinokourov, Sergio Paulinho, Pierre Rolland, …etc try their luck? Am sure, there are couple of riders, who would have prepared for this stage as the only race target in this tour. The question is who are they?  Watch this space tomorrow for another epic story of the tour as it unfolds…:) Follow Composed Volcano on Facebook. to get to read travel stories or simply subscribe to the blog!