(Hopper reports on the Tour during the 13th stage. Contains spoilers, or at least hints, for those of you planning to watch on TV this evening.)
The 13th of the 20 stages of this years TdF is underway right now, the 54km individual time trial in Albi and Bradley Wiggins is currently leading. Never say never but it is a wet day down there and the riders above Wiggins may be more interested in protecting their positions than going for the win.
Rasmussen holds both the yellow jersey of the leader and the polka dot climbing jersey. We've had a couple of "firsts" - Robert Hunter of the Barloworld team became the first South African to win a stage and Sinkewitz has tested "non-negative" (the rider who crashed into the spectator the other day) for testosterone - the first "non-negative" (is this Newspeak for "positive"? Shouldn't it be "unnegative"?) test of the tour this year.
Despite the (welcome) lack of positive tests the yellow jersey has once again become dirtied by drug testing issues as Rasmussen was fired by the Danish National cycling team for missing out of competition tests.
Marcus Burghhardt had an interesting day on Stage 9. You will be pleased to hear that the dog has apparently suffered no lasting effects - he looked as if he's been ambling across that road every day for about 13 years, and obviously a couple of hundred guys in bright lycra weren't enough to change his routine! Burghhardt just finished the TT about 3:30 behind Wiggins.
This TT is probably, barring any crashes, the last substantial opportunity for the standings at the top to change significantly, but for those of us who enjoy the team aspect of cycle racing, Tom Boonen's stage win yesterday was a master class. The Quickstep team set upthe train perfectly, kept the tempo hot enough to prevent any counter attacks, reeled in the escape with about a km to go and then delivered Boonen at the front with 200m to go - Zabel and Hunter made him work for the victory, his second this year.
Wiggins is still in the lead at the moment, fingers crossed!
Comments
Uhm... this Time trial was definitely not the last chance for the standings to be shaken up. Every stage for the next 3 plus the second long time trial next week will likely have a shakeup. This is the big second mountain run. 3 monster stages and 2 hilltop finishes.
Drugs, doped or whatever, these guys float up these thousands of feet of climbing are amazing. I like this sport partly because it is so anti-TV. It is generally boring with little spots of excitement.
Posted by: Markk | July 21, 2007 6:15 PM
Sadly for Britain, Wiggins didn't quite do it. Cancellara crashed when he was trailing Wiggins by a substantial margin, but the rain stopped in time for the later riders, Vinokourov taking most advantage to win the stage. Kloden and Popovych tasted tarmac in the early section, but both wnet on to finish well.
Posted by: hopper3011 | July 22, 2007 2:42 AM
Great timing for Rasmussen's skipped drug tests and his teammates' doping allegations against him to come up, what with him wearing yellow this week. I've decided to not care whether a particular rider might be saucy or not; they all have an upper hematocrit limit of 50%, so even for the druggies it's a level playing field (provided you ignore the stimulants, anabolics and so on).
Posted by: Kevin Beck | July 22, 2007 4:34 PM
Oh, HELLLLL no!
Pardon my French, but Fuck the hell.
did
Posted by: grumpy did | July 24, 2007 12:55 PM
Unreal. At this point it's looking like I could have entered the TdF on a three-speed huffy with a banana seat and stood a good chance of winning thanks to attrition alone.
I wonder which will turn out to be the bigger drugs-in-sport story of the summer of 2007 -- Barry Bonds or Le Tour?
Posted by: Kevin Beck | July 24, 2007 1:02 PM
I does appear that cycling is in the midst of a self-destruct sequence. I don't know the reason why the Danish Federation waited until now to make their move, have you read anything? It seems senseless to bring this up now.
Posted by: hopper3011 | July 25, 2007 5:24 AM