HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 12: Tonnerre > Vittel, 211.5km
Le Tour de France! Ca va? What does the ‘0’ stand for in 02:30 ? “Oh my God, it’s early!” Four hours sleep, as Barry White would say; “it’s just not enough!” It’s 14:19 and we’re on the motorway, near Metz; we just got lost – no excuses, but the signage is grim. Destination Vittel.
A town will be clearly marked, then it disappears at the next roundabout and being on the correct route has a large element of luck to it.
It’s not until you fly over Northern France again, that you remember how much a part agriculture plays in the structure of the French economy.
Nicki Sorensen.
Fly over Scotland and it’s not long before the patchwork of fields gives way to the hills – moorland or forest, but in France, the barely crumpled green, brown and golden quilt covers the land to the horizon and beyond in every direction.
Paris has hi-tech La Defense and Toulouse spawned Concorde, but make no mistake, much of France is still “profond.” Rural, deep, real.
But, enough of my blethers – “what about the race ?”
“Cavendish quatre a quatre” says the heading above the postage size picture of Cav, tucked into the gutter of L’Equipe’s front page.
On the cover of Monday’s edition, the whole front page was devoted to a colour picture of Fédrigo getting the better of Pellizotti at Tarbes.
The French are obviously getting bored with the ease with which Cav is hoovering up stages.
There was a piece in the Guardian, this morning that the French are also peeved about the young Manxman’s getting a bit “eggy” (as Terry Wogan would say) and making use of the “F” word, to quote L’Equipe’s headline, our Mark is alleged to have been ‘going off’ thus; “Asshole” and “F***ing Frenchies” – ah yes, I can see Viktor raising Cav even higher on the pedestal, now.
Ironically, right beside those eight column inches, he gets 10/10 to Tyler Farrar’s 8, Hushovd’s 4 and Freire’s 3.
They also analyse Cav’s train, “Le TGV de Columbia”… Grabsch and Eisel control the breaks and start the chase, at 50 kph.
Monfort, Kirchen and Rogers prevent breakaways and launch the final part of the train – 60 kph.
Hincapie, Martin and Renshaw bring Cav in, alone, as fast as possible and as close to the line as possible – 70 kph.
Doesn’t sound that difficult!
And across the top of the page above, a picture of him getting the better of Tyler Farrar, it proclaims; “Un sprint parfait” so, I guess they can’t be that pee-ed off with him.
It’s 17:30 CET now, in the press room, Vittel – we were met with the usual indifference when we went to get the creds – fat, bald and old doesn’t cut it with the ASO lovelies. [I hope Ed’s not describing me! Martin].
But eventually the White Knight arrived; a helpful lad who spoke English – job done!
Sorensen just won, he jumped the break then jumped his co-escapee, Calzati to win in the grand manner.
Cav skooshed the bunch sprint to stay in green.
That’s it, then, game on – best do some work!
Ciao!
Tour 09 Stage 12 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 12 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
AS starts today’s news with the fact that Cavendish wins stages with or with out race radios. “Dictadura del sprint” and “Con pinganillos o sin ellos, se repite el final gana Cavendish”, remember pinganillos are race radios in Spanish. So “Cav” is the dictator of the sprint, which if you think of it, that’s quite strong in a country that lived under a dictator (Franco) as recently as 1974!
Cav is the talk of the race.
Cavendish is the star of all the Spanish sports papers, “Cavendish equals the record of victories in 11 stages”. The man from the Isle of Man is being mentioned in the same breath as Petacchi, Cipollini and Freddy Maertens in that they have all won 4 stages in the first eleven stages.
The other big news is that Leipheimer and another 106 riders, including Wiggins and Menchov, are to be given back the 15 seconds they lost on Tuesday. Possible good news could be that Bouygues may stay on as a sponsor for another year costing 5.5 million euros; the win by Voeckler seems to have helped.
Andy Schleck has said “Seria estapido no atacar al Astaná en los Alpes…” so it would be stupid not to attack Astana in the Alps, fairly obvious.
We can’t wait, Andy.
Contador and Armstrong are his main competition and Alberto has the form, but Lance has to be given a lot of respect. And Friday to Colmar? “I would be stupid not to attack; I have a plan, maybe an early attack!”
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
In his classic song, ‘Pink Houses’ John Mellencamp says; ‘And there's winners, and there's losers - but they ain't no big deal.’ We’re not sure that Sunweb or QuickStep, the biggest winners and losers of the day would agree. Sunweb’s day was perfect; they isolated Kittel; took Matthews to the intermediate sprint win and then the stage win.
On a day of relentless rain which couldn’t decide whether it was apocalyptic or biblical, former jockey and reigning Scottish Olympic Time Trial Champion, Wilson Renwick (RT 23) was the man who coped best with the drastic conditions. Last man off and former Trossachs top dog, Chris Smart (GTR – Return To Life) finished second with 1:09:57 to Renwick’s 1:07:47. Last place on the podium went to Scottish Hill Climb Champion, David Griffiths (Bioracer-Project GO) with 1:10:23.
'Are you ready, boys?' asks ex-pro and new Copenhagen Six Day 2013 race organiser, Michael Sandstød. Then he adds with a grin; 'Enjoy your last hour in Copenhagen!' I'm holding Michael Mørkøv on the start line for the final chase.
'For me, that was the hardest chase of the winter!' The words of Franco Marvulli as he flopped onto the bench in his track side cabin, after he'd just won the night's closing 60 minute madison with Bruno Risi, here at the Copenhagen Six Day.
On a day when the Northern skies and the Cromarty Firth conspired in a sullen, grey partnership, Jim Cusick's (Glasgow Couriers) winning 1:51:36 in the Scottish 50 Mile Time Trial Championship 2007 around Invergordon, shone like a beacon. Revelling in the cold, wet conditions, Cusick (above) beat another hardman, Carlos Riise (Shetland Wheelers) by nearly two minutes, the islander recording 1:53:20.
Dan Patten's Blog - So, I'm recovering well - so well in fact that I came my closest to date to winning here in Belgium last Sunday, finally ending up in 3rd place, but so close to taking the win.
Last year at this time, life was ice cream and fairies for Dan Fleeman; he'd won the Tour of the Pyrenees; Cervelo Test Team had snapped him up and a start in a Grand Tour looked like a formality. But pro cycling is an unforgiving sport, and 2009 didn't go according to the script for the likeable man from Lichfield.
Le Tour de France 2012 - Stage 5. Greipel again – as we said yesterday, sprinting is as much a mental game as it is physical one. Greipel and his team had good morale and they exploited it – and of course they had that bit of luck which comes when all the stars align, staying clear of the crash which saw poor Tyler Farrar losing even more skin.
And too much can’t be read into Cav’s defeat, he hit the deck at 60 kph the day before and whilst he has grinta aplenty, the human body knows when it’s time not too goo too deep – yesterday was one of those times where’s Cav’s engine management system took precedence over the driver’s wishes.
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