Watching the peloton circulate up and down the
Champs-Élysées on
Stage 20 of
Le Tour, it was the old familiar feeling which gripped me: what am I gonna do now! It's hard to let go of the anticipation and thrills one gets each night when you know the Tour is on and another stage is up and running. It's a real downshift when it's done and dusted for another year.
Firstly, to a thrilling and tense
Stage 19, the long 52 km
ITT from
Bordeaux to
Pauillac. On a dead flat, generally non-technical course, it was anticipated that
Alberto Contador would extend his 8 second lead over
Andy Schleck to something pushing 1 and a half to 2 minutes. Seemed perfectly reasonable to me, given the past history of Schleck re: ITTs, plus his rather lackluster Prologue performance where he lost 69 seconds to Alberto, and that in only 8.9 kms. True, that was over a more technical course and with water on the roads, but still...
What transpired was anything but that, with Schleck dishing it out in spades to Contador, slowly eating into his meager 8 second lead, and at one stage appearing to actually take the virtual
maillot jaune briefly after around 20 km into the stage. For a long time it was very close, with Andy appearing to be riding much more smoothly on the bike, whilst Alberto was continually having to pull himself back on his seat, being forced to ride
sur le rivet to keep a hold on Schleck's times. Over the last 12 kms, Contador slowly began to eke out some time as Andy tired, but it was slow going, and Alberto was suffering whilst Andy remained stoic in face and body.
To his credit, Alberto pushed on in the last 6 km and it was only here where he made notable inroads over a slowing Schleck, eventually crossing the line
39 seconds ahead of Andy, and 35th back overall. (Make of that time differential what you will - as many have pointed out, that was the total time Alberto turned around on Andy when the Luxembourger had the chain loss on the
Port de Balès: personally I think there were other time issues of more 'concern': including the neutralization of Stage 2 where Andy stood to lose significant time, and his poor performance in the prologue).
The relative slower performances of the latter third of the field was a generalised one amongst them: the wind came up and turned into a significant cross wind/headwind, so Alberto's 35th place didn't mean much in the scheme of things. The changing conditions certainly benefited the earlier riders, time trial world champion
Fabian Cancellara amongst them. He ran in some 17 seconds ahead of second placed man
Tony Martin (another nice ride), and 1 min 48 sec ahead of
Bert Grabsch in 3rd. A great win, but it would have been interesting if he'd gone late in the day with the changed conditions maybe? Well, maybe not either - he looked very strong.
In a superb performance,
Denis Menchov of Rabobank started 4th to last and rode the wheels of his bike in the changed conditions to run over the top of Samuel Sánchez and grab his 3rd spot off him by a decent margin: the '
Silent Assassin' had made podium! (I was particularly pleased as I'd picked Denis to go 3rd in this Tour).
And so, onto the final
Stage 20: the jaunt from
Longjumeau to
Paris of 102.5km, the first 49 of which are, by tradition, a chance for the riders to loosen up, flit about and gasbag with each other, and generally ham it up for cameras.
Alberto and his
Astana team mates quaffed the usual celebratory champers, others played silly buggers, and Team
Radio Shack put in motion what turned out to be a rather shabby and ill-advised stunt regarding changing jerseys after signing in in their usual garb (the message of jerseys numbered 28 for the 28-odd million cancer sufferers world-wide was admirable but the execution was not. I would've been more impressed if the jerseys weren't readily identifiable with the Radio Shack logo - I guess sponsors and the Livestrong cause are insatiable PR demons).
Arriving at the
Place de la Concorde, Team Astana lead the peloton over the finish line for the first time, and then it was pretty much every rider for himself up the
Champs-Élysées. As per usual, a breakaway soon formed, peaking out at around 11 riders and 30 seconds advantage with 4 laps remaining, but it was slowly wound in by the teams of the sprinters, although team
Lampre-Farnese Vini, protecting their
maillot vert man
Alessandro Petacchi, were more than happy to site back until late in the stage, wanting to let the breakaway suck up all the intermediate sprint points on offer, as the points race would come down to placings on the line between the top 3 contenders
Petacchi,
Cavendish and
Hushovd.
HTC-Columbia did most of the work and swallowed up the breakaway just before arriving at the
Place de la Concorde on the last sweep heading for the tunnel. Arriving at the
flamme rouge, it was the now traditional lead-out chaos, with teams scattered about the place and the main sprinters basically with each other in a group at the head of the race. Arriving on the
Champs-Élysées,
Thor Hushovd was getting a tow from team mate
Brett Lancaster, and he was first to launch, but he was quickly swamped by
Mark Cavendish on his right, and
Petacchi on his left, and it was game over for the
God of Thunder and his green jersey aspirations.
It was game over for all those interested in the stage win too, as
Cavendish blasted away and won cruising.
Petacchi stayed strong for 2nd ahead of
Julian Dean, and by virtue of this earned himself the
maillot vert.
Contador rolled in with the pack for Tour win number 3, with Andy Schleck in close attendance cementing 2nd, and Denis Menchov soon thereafter confirming his 3rd.
So, final results:
- Alberto Contador the winner of Le Tour 2010 in 91:58:48;
- Andy Schleck, 2nd in GC and the winner of the white jersey at 39 sec back;
- Denis Menchov, 3rd in GC at 2:01;
- Petacchi winning the points classification over Cavendish and Hushovd;
- Anthony Charteau picking up the mountains classification; and
- Radioshack winning the teams classification by 9:15 over Caisse d'Epargne and Rabobank.
For me, a tour I thought was excellent: wearing and tough, with a bit of controversy, some douche-baggery and preciousness, interesting stages (hope they keep the cobbles!), and a nice historical bent to it. Roll on the Vuelta and the World Champs in Geelong. And please hurry up
Le Tour 2011!
Ride Safe!
