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Stage 19
Day 21 Issoire - Le Puy en Velay 154 km
Analysis
Today was a pretty good stage and there were some interesting things
going on. First, Basso and Ullrich decided to give it a rest
and save everything for tomorrow's time trial. As expected,
there were a lot of attacks from the start with large groups trying
to get away but McGee wants to move up so bad for the Points Title
and there have been so few stages in which he could sprint for the
finish that he and his team, Francaise des Jeux, kept the breaks
back as long as they could hoping to get McEwen points in the first
road prime but the prime was just too far into the stage so the
attacks won the battle. Cofidis even helped tow for a while in hopes
of getting O'Grady points to get closer to Hushovd. Notice
that Credit Agricole didn't help tow because they don't need more
points to win the race for the Points Title. Why give the
other guys a chance to take the lead if you don't have to?
Finally, four riders went up the road with ten more chasing and the
peloton decided to go for a nice, easy ride through the country and
let the gap get fairly large until some of the teams with riders in
the lower part of the top ten on GC decided to close the ground
enough to protect their top ten spots on GC. Moreau's team
didn't quite get the job done so he dropped to 11th on GC.
The biggest lesson of the day came from Commesso when the chase
group of ten got to within 1'30" or the four man break and he
decided to attack to bridge to the break. The chase group
would break up and regroup and then Commesso would attack again, and
again, and again. Every time Commesso attacked, the chase
group lost time and he never figured it out costing him and the rest
of the group any chance at winning the stage. Commesso finally
got away with one other rider but still finished 2'43" down on the
break. I have to give my dummy of the Tour award to him for
chewing off his own foot while running a marathon. It
absolutely was not smart racing and he should have figured it out
quickly.
The lesson should be that, as long as the chase group is making
ground on the break and you are not close enough for a quick bridge,
don't attack the chase group. You need them to help you catch
the break and win the race. You might even let it catch the
break before attacking. Maybe Commesso drank too much coffee
before the race and couldn't sit still or he just had to go really
bad and couldn't wait for the others.
It shows that even pro's are not perfect and can get stupid because
we are all human and we humans are an imperfect species. Just
try to keep the stupid moves to a minimum, especially when the world
is watching.
The race for the Points Jersey is still tight between Hushovd,
O'Grady, and McEwen with only one road stage to go so that should be
fun Sunday. Expect to see some good team tactics there.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the day we have been waiting for. It will be a
55.5 km individual time trial and will provide the final sorting for
this Tour. It is a kind of rolling course which will help the
climbers a little bit but the time trialists will have their day in
the sun.
It will be interesting to see if Basso's time trialing has improved
as much as his climbing has since the start of the race. He
finished 1'24" behind Lance in the first time trial and, pending his
improvement, it is possible for him to win the stage. If he
does, I think it will be close enough that Lance won't lose the
lead.
For the fun of it, I worked up what I expect the top ten on GC to
look like after tomorrow's stage. I expect Rasmussen, Mancebo,
and Evans, to lose ground on the standings and Ullrich, Leipheimer,
Vino, Landis, and Moreau to move up on the standings. For fun,
let's see how close my guess will be for the final GC of this Tour.
1 Armstrong
2 Basso
3 Ullrich
4 Leipheimer
5 Rasmussen
6 Vino
7 Landis
8 Mancebo
9 Evans
10 Moreau
Notice that this will be the first time that the US will have three
riders finish in the top 10 on GC with all three actually finishing
in the top 7. Of course, anything can still happen in the Tour
including accidents and illness or just a bad day so we will have to
wait until tomorrow to find out what the final GC will really look
like. :-)
