Stage 9 from Morzine-Avoriaz to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne turned into a bruising, battering 204.5 km affair, with the 25 km Col de la Madeleine representing the final of four climbs en-route to the finish line, and even a 30 km downhill/flat after it's tortured ascent presented little chance for re-capture of lost time.
Again, a day of much action and drama - too much to follow at times - so here were the stand out events:
- Like Lance Armstrong on the previous stage, yellow jersey holder Cadel Evans cracked on the 'Madeleine', losing a little over 10 minutes on new maillot jaune Andy Schleck and race favourite Alberto Contador in the race to the top, and in all probability losing any hope of a Tour victory or podium. To his strong credit, he plugged on, and with the aid of a supreme effort by teammate Mauro Santambrogio (whom he had earlier dropped on the climb) regained some two minutes on the final descent and run into the line. To his even greater credit, his first thought after crossing the line was to thank Santambrogio. This year has seen a different Cadel, and he's done the World Champion jersey proud.
- Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador were a breed apart today - barring meltdowns (still a possibility - it's been a tour of them so far and the Pyrenees awaits) they are the top two: it's likely just the order to be disputed. Schleck made repeated efforts to bust open Contador on the last 8km of the Madeleine, but Alberto was resolute. After repeated Schleck moves, they called a truce, and set about working together to distance all their rivals. Their effort was so strong that they caught the seemingly home-and-hosed breakaway group of four with 800m to the line (dragging Luis León Sánchez with them) and put the cat amongst the pigeons. Anthony Charteau (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) did a quite lovely double take as Schleck and Contador cruised past the jockeying quartet of himself, Sandy Casar (Française des Jeux), Christophe Moreau (Caisse d'Epargne) and Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Farnese Vini) before this bunch got it together and battled for the win ahead of the tired two.
- Sandy Casar ended up taking the stage from Sánchez and Cunego (a little disappointing in the run home I thought).
- Levi Leipheimer (Radio Shack) lost a little time on Schleck and Contador, but was the best of the main GC contenders (6th now in the GC table), whilst, in relative finishing order, Denis Menchov and Robert Gesink (Rabobank) are 4th and 7th respectively, Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo) is 10th and Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) 5th. Courtesy of today's good performances, Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez (Euskaltel - Euskadi) moves to 3rd, and Luis León Sánchez of Caisse d'Epargne (8th) and Joaquin Rodriguez (Team Katusha) (9th) round out the Top 10.
- Lance Armstrong also rode well after a disaster stage, coming in with one of the earliest bunches at 2:50 back.
- Mauro Santambrogio's gutsy effort to help Cadel to pull back time after Madeleine, and their emotional embrace post-race;
- Cadel himself plowing on with huge resolve and clawing back some lost time;
- Jens Voigt getting in a prior breakaway group, and then turning himself inside out to help Schleck put the hurt on when he was picked up by Schleck and Contador around 5km from the top of the Madeleine. He literally rode his eyeballs out to consolidate Andy's gains on all GC contenders bar Alberto. When he cracked within 500m of the top, he basically slowed to a crawl, and it wasn't exactly clear whether or not he'd actually come to a dead stop. Then, some 2:07 after the first rider past the finish line, big Jens cruised in with a small group, only some 2:07 in arrears! Strong, strong, strong!
Ride Safe!
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