Pre-season Teams Analysis | Course Analysis | Riders & Teams | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | Stage 5 | Stage 6 | Stage 7 | Stage 8 | Stage 9 | Rest Day & Coach's Analysis | Stage 10 | Stage 11 | Stage 12 | Stage 13 | Stage 14 | Stage 15 | Rest Day & Coach's Analysis | Stage 16 | Stage 17 | Stage 18 | Stage 19 | Stage 20 | Stage 21 | Post Tour Analysis
Back to Main Tour
Index
Go to coachcarl.com Home Page
Stage 15
Day 16 Montelimar - Gap 181 km
Analysis
There was a mad dash by just about everyone for the stage win today.
As expected, some of the KOM teams tried to keep the breaks in for
the first KOM sprint but were over powered by the attacking. At one
time there were about 15 riders off the front with about five riders
who were in the top 20 on GC. You knew that break was doomed.
CEI got Arroyo into a break so they wouldn't have to chase which
would have forced PHO to do the honors for the day so PHO brought
the break back in so they could rest while CEI did the daily
chasing.
As expected, DSC put Hincapie and then Martinex into breaks but
Martinez couldn't hang with the break and got dropped back to the
peloton. Even Bennati tried to make a break.
The break was off and doing well late in the stage when three of the
six riders were dropped by a crash with two going to the hospital
with injuries. The loss of three pairs of legs almost got the break
caught but two of the riders fought hard and got the first two
places. As expected, the break did win the stage in spite of the
late crash and chase effort by a number of teams to bring it back.
As expected, there were attacks in both the break and peloton on the
last climb. DSC had Popovych attacking over the top of the climb
working with Azevedo for the stage win but they lost to attacks, one
by the son of a friend and former training and racing partner, John
Van de Velde. I send my congratulations to his son for getting 3rd
in the stage. Nice job. I know John must be proud of his son.
It was a fund stage with a lot of hard racing because they didn't
get the break established until pretty late into the stage. You had
to keep reaching for the standings and notes to see why different
teams were doing what they were doing. The racing was aggressive, as
expected, because of tomorrow's rest day.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is a rest day so I will provide my usual coach's analysis
for the Tour up to this moment, the analysis for the next stage, and what
to expect in the coming week. After tomorrow, there will only
be six days of racing left. Bummer, huh? :-)
