HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 13: Vittel > Colmar, 200km
Bonjour from Colmar! A couple of unrelated items first: I just noticed that the Rolex ad on the back of yesterday’s L’Equipe is a picture of Turnberry, with Ailsa Craig in the background – ah! the Auld Country!
The footwear of choice for Tour journos this year is ‘basies,’ as we used to call them – baseball boots; I’m gonna stick with my deck shoes.
Vosges Matin, the local paper, has a Tour pull out, all the riders, all the stages and with a great pic of Sorensen, winning in Vittel, yesterday – the French do embrace the race.
Right, we’ll try some joined-up stuff.
The smell of the bakeries in Vittel this morning was wonderful, as Martin and I ambled round to find the team buses.
But first, we took 10 minutes to watch the publicity caravan roll out; you would have to be really cynical not to manage a smile for the caravan.
We had four goals today: interview Tyler Farrar; get the DS’s opinions on what could and should have been a turning point in the race; watch the race live on the last climb and give Charly Wegelius his wedding present, a bottle of Drambuie.
Tyler is a joy to talk to, polite, lucid and insightful – that was an easy job.
We caught up with Charly, he larked about, trying to put the Drambuie in his Canyon’s bottle cage – the TV crews appeared, as if by magic; “do that again, Charly!”
Talking to the DS’s was cool, especially Konyshev – a legend.
He was second to Lemond in the Worlds, 20 years ago and still winning pro races up until a year or two ago.
A “baroudeur’s” stage, tomorrow – maybe a sprinters; but that depends how mad Cav is about Hushovd snaffling the green jersey.
OK, time to watch le Tour on German Eurosport – why German?
Tell you tomorrow.
Ciao, ciao.
Tour 09 Stage 13 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 13 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
“Batalla en los Vosgos”
I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of AS this morning so had to make do with Marca.
They lead with today’s battle in the Vosges mountains; there are many riders who say they will be attacking on the roads to Colmar. Alberto Contador is expecting attacks, but said it was up to the others, he would be waiting.
Martin and Ed think they might have been at the wrong race, only seeing a few boys battling today, and lots of laughing and chatting as the three big groups went past on the last climb, the Firstplan.
The big problem for all the riders could be the weather as “tormentas, frio y viento” (heavy rain, cold and wind) has been predicted for the stage.
Armstrong is saying “it could be a shit stage with many difficulties, lots of attacks from rivals and a crisis in my team on the final climb. We will have to analyse the situations as they arise”.
“Es una de las etapas más duras y decisivas del Tour” (this is one of the hardest and decisive stages of the Tour) said Giovanni Lombardi, the manager of the Schlecks.
The Devil gets his photo right in the centre of the report, which shows there wasn’t much to say about yesterday’s stage to Vittel. “Pellizotti, a bone for Egoi” refers to the chase for mountains points which enlivened the breakaway as Marca puts it, “making a beautiful pulse in the hills”, but the quote of the day has to be the jump of Nicki Sörensen, “like a cat out of water”.
Banzai!
“’Banzai’ hacia Paris”. Historic, two Japanese riders might finish the Tour for the first time ever! Tomoharu Masuda, producer of J-Sport, the TV channel that retransmits the Tour in Japan says “there are many young road cyclists in Japan”.
“Contador no quiere ‘gorilas’” Alberto does not agree to Lance having three “gorilas” bodyguards with him. The madrileño (Contador) is simply a cyclist, not a person of fiction or a Hollywood artist.
They do keep picking away at each other, do these “teammates”.
So that’s today’s news through the eyes of Spanish sports daily; Marca.
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.
Criteriums, a man of my acquaintance describes criteriums thus; ‘a bunch of guys turn up, they ride round in circles for an hour, one of ‘em wins then everyone goes home.’ Very true, but a night hanging over the barriers in Galashiels, a nice borders town under the spring sunshine with your amigos whilst catching up with old friends sure beats watching the soap operas.
"I hit 'em hard!" was how Pete Williams (Pinarello/Candi TV/ Marshalls Pasta) explained his race winning move in Sunday's 54th Drummond Trophy, held in bright sunshine on the sinuous back roads west of Eaglesham and the M77. With a new Scottish sponsor's name on their jerseys (Marshalls) and the commanding figure of team boss Phil Griffiths there in the flesh, there was never any doubt that Pinarello were going to win.
What a stage! But who’s the man of the day? Froome? Wiggins?Both produced performances that had me pinching myself to see if I was dreaming; but no, the man of the day wasn't part of that infernal train making light of 20% grades. La Planche des Belles Filles...
Przemyslaw Niemiec wins today, but it’s just morbid curiosity which compels me to watch Chris Froome (Sky & Monaco/England/South Africa/Kenya) these days – he climbs like a stick insect with Saint Vitus Dance. It upsets me; but distressing or not, it gets him up them hills, albeit in his own mystifying style – off the back, off the front...
The Giro was a wonderful race, no question; but whilst it's charging across Italy everything else gets ignored - like the Scottish Road Race Championship, for example. The winner was - unsurprisingly - Raleigh's Evan Oliphant. VeloVeritas caught up with the man from Wick a few days after the race...
We made sure we were in plenty time for the Giro d'Italia 2010 stage start today - our mission was to get pics of Diquigiovanni's Cameron Wurf for Jered Gruber but Cam didn't arrive at the sign on before our appointed time of bolting.
I remember interviewing Andreas Müller a year or two ago and him telling me that he'd be happy to emulate the career of German former Six Day rider Gert Dörich, who was the 'Taxi Driver' par excellence during his long career which took in 163 Six Day races.
Stage One of this year’s Tour looked tailor made for Tony Martin (Germany & QuickStep); or just maybe rising Giant home boy chronostar Tom Dumoulin? - but a name which kept appearing in the Australian press as Le Tour loomed large was that of BMC’s 25 year-old South Australian rider, Rohan Dennis.