Michael Westapher

Well, the Tour de France was unofficially won today when the 1-2 combo of Froome and Wiggins charged up the mountain thus putting even more time between themselves and Vincenzo Nibali. The stage was pretty exciting though.

Team Liquigas lead most of Peloton today in an attempt to setup Nibali for an attack, which never came.

Frenchman Thomas Voeckler was out in a breakaway for the majority of the day in an effort to secure the King of the Mountains jersey.

Controversial rider Alejandro Valverde won the stage by about 20 seconds today with Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins finishing 2nd and 3rd.

Alejandro Valverde wins stage 17 of the Tour de France

Chris Froome has been the real story of the 2012 Tour de France though. He was totally able to chase him down but he instead chose to stay loyal to his teammate Bradley Wiggins and waited for him on a number of occasions during the final climb when he could have been chasing down Valverde. Wiggins and team Sky have held him back this year.

Chris Froome will win the Tour de France in the future.

GC Standings:

1. Bradley Wiggins
2. Chris Froome, 2:05
3. Vicenzo Nibali, 2:41

It’s also worth mentioning that Team Radio Shack has 4 riders within the top 16. Had Andy Schleck been able to compete this year, things may have been very different considering how dominant they’ve been as a team.

King of the Mountains Standings:

1. Thomas Voeckler, 134
2. Fredrik Carl Wilhelm Kessiakoff, 123

Voeckler should be able to hold onto the jersey pretty easily now.

Sprinter’s points race:

1. Peter Sagan, 356
2. Andre Greipel, 254
3. Matthew Goss, 203

Sagan has destroyed this race.

Best young rider classification:

1. Tejay Van Garderen
2. Thibaut Pinot, 3:16

Van Garderen just needs to not give up 3:16 in the final time trial and he’ll win the best young rider competition.

Stage 18 Preview

Stage 18 Profile

Lots of little hills makes it possible for a breakaway to survive. I like Alexander Vinokourov, who’s racing in his final Tour de France to get the win tomorrow.

It was just announced that Frank Schleck has tested positive for the banned diuretic Xipamide.

Diuretics aren’t technically performance enhancing drugs in the traditional sense, but can be used to reduce weight which can help a rider go faster, especially in the mountains. The B-sample has yet to be tested but it is expected that Frank Schleck will be suspended immediately.

A break away of 11 riders has a massive lead of nearly 15 minutes on the peloton and I believe that one of these riders will go on to get the stage win today unless Cadel Evans and Vincenzo Nibali attack in tandem, which I do not expect to happen.

Rain began and worsened on the descent of the Port de Lers climb. The wet pavement would prove to make the decent slick and scary. The riders were quick to put on their raincoats before the descent started.

Peter Sagan and Philippe Gilbert are among the riders in the lead group which makes me think that they’re expecting their team mates, who are currently in 3rd and 4th place over all, to attack on the second climb in an attempt to make up time on Wiggins.

Louis Leon Sanchez would do his best to thwart that plan when he attacked on the 2nd climb. It was a good move because he immediately got rid of 5 of the riders in the group and 2 others, including Sagan, would drop off the leaders but do their best to keep them in sight. Sagan would eventually catch up with the group when French cyclist Sandy Casar launched his own attack to reach the top of the mountain first.

When the GC riders got to the second climb, the roads were so narrow that they could only ride at a width of about 3 riders at points. It looks very dangerous, not to mention incredibly hard. Team Sky quickly regained control of the group and that would make it very difficult to for anyone to launch an attack.

At the summit of the climb, Cadel Evans hopped off his bike and waited for his team’s mechanic to replace a flat for him. The good news for Cadel was that his team mate George Hincapie caught up to him and waited for him. Evans would two additional flats on the descent. He lost a lot of time but team Sky slowed down their pace, perhaps in a sign of sportsmanship. Evans was a total of 2 minutes behind them.

It turns out that there were at least half-a-dozen flats here and it was later confirmed that dozens of tacks were discovered on the road. Wiggins was also a victim with under 10 miles to go.

Louis Leon Sanchez attacked on his own with about 6 miles left in the stage and quickly opened up a 15 second lead when no one countered. This is a move that would prove to hold up as the remaining 4 riders chasing Sanchez would not be able to catch him.

The remaining 4 riders would sprint for 2nd place but Sagan easily took the line first. The riders in the GC group slowed their pace to that of us mortals in order to let Cadel Evans catch up to them. It wasn’t Evans’ fault that he had all those flats and they weren’t going to punish him for it. It was a wonderful show of class by Team Sky.

Stage 15 Preview

Rolling hills for stage 15 of the TdF

A series of rolling hills will prove difficult for the sprinters but I expect one of them to win the stage and it will likely be Greipel or Cavendish.

I’m feeling quite a bit better though I’m not quite back to 100% just yet.

Well, today’s stage was easily the most boring of the race yet and I’m certainly not about to try and make it seem more interesting than it was. I got the impression that the racers today were not pleased with the Tour’s decision to place a big climb at the start of the stage and as a result, the peloton didn’t even try to chase down the 5-man break away.

Team Garmin’s David Millar would be awarded the stage victory today. It was nice to see team Garmin get a win after all the unfortunate events that they’ve had during the race.

David Millar wins Stage 12 of the TdF

Stage 13 Preview

Return of the sprinters

The sprinters will return tomorrow and you should expect a wild finish as the last 2k are just slightly downhill. Speeds will be high and that means that you can expect Cavendish, Goss, Sagan, and Farrar to be in the mix.

An astonishing 25 riders broke away early on stage 10. Included in that breakaway were:

• Popovych
• Voigt
• Voeckler
• Zabriskie
• Sanchez
• Morkov
• Goss
• Sagan

The first 6 are good climbers while the last two were only interested in earning sprint points. At the intermediate sprint, Sagan hit the gas way too soon and it was easy for Goss to earn maximum points and cut into Sagan’s lead.

These three earned the most points during the sprint today:

1. Goss
2. Hutarovich
3. Sagan

One by one the riders would drop from the breakaway group so that only 4 remained — Voeckler, Scarponi and Devenyns, and Sanchez.

Though Sagan dropped off the breakaway group, he did not fall all the way back to the peloton. And once he had topped the massive Col du Grand Columbier, his team mate Nibali caught up to him and Sagan fearlessly lead him down the other side on an insane descent where Nibali would attempt to make up time on Wiggins.

Sagan would eventually crack on the next climb, the Col de Richemond but his job had been done. They had made up some time on Wiggins and now Nibali was on his own. Nibali had pulled back 1:20 on Wiggins with abut 17 miles to go.

Then, the GC group with Wiggins and Evans in it would crank up the pace and unfortunately for him, he would end up giving all that time back. It was a perfect plan that was just too difficult to execute.

Voeckler would take maximum points in the King of the Mountain race and as a result, inherit the polkadot jersey.

Somehow, the unthinkable happened when Jens Voigt rode across the gap and caught the 4 leaders with under 7 miles to go. He immediately attacked but was unable to hold off the others. There were multiple attacks by these 5 riders put in but in the end, it would be Thomas Voeckler that would win the stage. The French would be happy.

Thomas Voeckler wins stage 10 and takes the polkadot jersey

Stage 11 Preview:

Stage 11 Profile

That looks awfully difficult.

The riders that are within the top ten that are vying for a spot on the podium should be the favorites to win the stage.

• Vincenzo Nibali
• Denis Menchov
• Haimar Zubeldia Agirre
• Maxime Monfort
• Jurgen Van Den Broeck
• Nicolas Roche
• Tejay Van Garderen

You can add pure climbers like Samuel Sanchez, Thomas Voeckler, Frank Schleck, and about a hand full of the other riders on Radio Shack.