The Tour Day 4

Cobbles and Crashes were the order of the day in today’s race, and the playing field was leveled between the two Italian sprinters Petacchi and Cippolini when Petacchi’s leadout man Marco Velo retired after a nasty crash that snapped his collarbone. (Ouch!) It seems my hopes for the Fasso Bortolo train and a dynamic sprint between the two Italians are becoming dimmer and dimmer.

Big George Hincapie and Vladimir Ekimov led the Postie Boys and the peleton safely over the first stretch cobbles in a scene reminiscent of this year’s Paris-Roubaix. It must be great to have George on the front after his experience in the earlier race. I still have in my mind him charging out in front at the end of the cobblestones in both races.

A bad crash right before the first group of cobbles split the peleton. This is where Velo crashed. Although not in the crash, the resulting confusion held up Iban Mayo, who was touted to be a contender against Lance in the mountains and for the yellow jersey. Also held up was Roberto Heras, team leader of the Liberty Seguros team. Liberty Seguros members dropped back to lead Heras back into the main peleton, but Mayo was not so lucky. He was left alone without any team support and by the time the domestiques realized it, it was too late for him. He lost almost three minutes to the main contenders and Phil and Paul all but wrote him off. Also left behind in this group was the yellow jersey Thor Hushovd, and Mario Cippolini.

I’ve seen Mayo in the mountains though, he’s a plucky little rider, so I am not so ready to call him quits. Although tomorrow’s team time trial could lose him even two and a half more minutes at the most, these Basque riders have amazing stamina in the mountains.

The Liberty Seguros team is the reorganized ONCE team. When ONCE dropped their sponsorship last year, team director Manolo Saiz quickly recruited Heras as his team leader. ONCE was the team of surprises in the 2003 Vuelta. The youngest member on their team, Isidro Nozal, happened into the yellow jersey early on in the race and held onto it for most of the race, with his only real contender being Roberto Heras. Going into the last time trial of that race, Isidro had over three minutes on Heras, and everyone counted him as unbeatable. It was unfortunate for Isidro that the time trial was up a mountain, and my man Roberto took those three minutes out of him to win the Vuelta on the last day. Now Roberto is team leader and Nozal is working for him. Together with the other strong members of Liberty Seguros, they are a team to watch, especially in the mountains.

Other minor crashes on the second short stretch of cobbles split the peleton even more but the first group quickly reorganized themselves for the sprint finish. USPS, T Mobile, Phonak and Fasso Bortolo took turns leading the charge to the finish line but once again Fasso Bortolo was thwarted when trying to bring their man Petacchi to the finish line first.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned the yellow jersey but not the stage winner Robbie McEwen, the Australian rider for Lotto-Domo. Today Robbie came third in the sprint finish but had enough time on the other riders to claim the yellow jersey, which he called a “consolation prize for not winning the stage.” Ah, those sprinters, seems they have their priorities backward.

Today’s stage win goes to Jean-Patrick Nazon of AG2R Prevoyance, who inched over the line just ahead of Eric Zabel.

Today’s great television shot was Mario Cippolini riding along in the second group of the peleton, gesturing to the cameraman to ask him how much time difference was between the two groups. He had a big smile on his face and looked like he was just out for a leisurely Sunday ride. This will probably be his last tour, or so it is speculated, as he is the second oldest rider at 38 years. Valdimir Ekimov is the oldest. Interesting fact came out today, Ekimov retired several years ago but was recruited by Johan Bruyneel, the USPS team director, to come out of retirement and ride for Lance in these last few tours.

I didn’t follow cycling when Cippolini was in his prime and I’m sorry to have missed him. He’s a flamboyant rider and at this stage in his career he appears to be having a great time riding with his team. He came to the US this spring to ride the Tour of Georgia and I believe he had a stage win there.

Team Time Trial Tomorrow! I love the time trials. Even though they are relatively boring to watch compared to the other stages, they have so much influence on the final outcome.

Today’s Tune to the Tour contest word is “Ullrich”.

CKS/bl Tridiot Rating calculated by taking the age of the two oldest riders in the tour, adding them together, multiplied by the average age of all the other riders, divided by the number of seconds Lance is behind and we come up with 118.22222222222