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Stage 21
Day 23 Corbeil Essonnes - Paris 160 km
Analysis
This stage had a surprise element to it. When I went over the
standings yesterday, I noticed that there were four riders,
Leipheimer, Vino, Rasmussen, and Evans, who were within 30 seconds
of each other. I thought there might be a race for placings
changes within this group but figured it would be over ridden by the
racing for the Points Title so I didn't say anything about it in my
write up. Vino made things interesting and ticked off Lance
and Discovery by attacking to pick up the time bonus for the first
road prime. Imagine someone actually wanting to race in a bike
race and not just permitting the Yellow Jersey to be the first one
on the Champs-Elysees because of a relatively new tradition.
In spite of Gerosteiner being ready for and covering this attack
quickly, Vino won the road prime gaining two seconds on Leipheimer
and almost tying with him. Leipheimer was actually a fraction
of a second ahead because of his time trial times so had not lost
his lead over Vino. This race would become the focal point for
the stage.
After the attacking started for a break for the stage win, the
sprinter teams for O'Grady, McEwen, and Davis worked hard to bring
the breaks back in with consistent success, bringing in break after
break as expected. It looked like my expectations would be
achieved until Vino attacked on the last lap gaining a slight lead
and staying away. McGee bridged to Vino but Vino beat him in
the sprint picking up the time bonus for winning moving him ahead of
Leipheimer. It was a really great move and we should have
expected this from Vino knowing how aggresive and determined Vino
is. He just never quits trying and should make an interesting
GC team leader. I look forward to his racing next year.
In looking back over my pre Tour top six guess, I think I did pretty
good considering how little information we had to work with since
the top contenders had not ridden against each other to win a major
race and, for some of them, we only had their word concerning their
fitness development. Three of my top four picks took the top
three places with the fourth losing time and quitting with a
fractured wrist. I feel pretty good about this especially
since even Lance was wrong when he predicted his top competition
would come from Ullrich and instead of Basso with Lance having
access to much more information than I did.
Tomorrow
I will be providing a post Tour analysis, pre Tour analysis for
2006, and coach's performance analysis tomorrow. I am still
putting it together in my head.
