The Official Tour de France 2010 Thread

I think Contador will win le Tour by a mile. I've never thought much of Evans, I don't see Wiggins attacking (successfully) and Armstrong is "over the hill". The Schlecks promise much, but Conty will just fly away from them when he has too.

Chavenel must keep his win today, and the jersey. If only to annoy Cancellara.
 
Cancellara annoyed me today, it's a race, ok so some of the fav's for GC crashed, the roads are the same for everyone. It would've made the TDF very interesting had he not slowed everyone down.

Rumors that there is going to be another protest tomorrow, hope not as it'll ruin what will be an awesome stage.
 
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I don't know a lot about cycling, and only really started watching the Tour last year whilst I was unemployed, so what I'm about to say probably goes against some unwritten rules of racing.

Why should one man (Cancellara) decide whether or not that the stage should stand as a race? From what I could see, he has some clout as both a senior rider and the (then) holder of the yellow jersey, so having a word with the commissars isn't a problem as such, but I do think he was told to go slow because his team leaders were involved in a couple of the crashes. Tough!

Can you imaging the uproar if (and I'll use the F1 comparison as most people are familiar with it) Jenson Button went off on the first corner and had to pit for a new nose-cone, whilst Hamilton backed the pack up and McLaren told everyone to not pass him until Button had got back on track and joined the group?

What's the point of having a race, if teams then decide (and pretty much force the hand of the commissars due to the riders actions) to nullify a section?

I'm with Hushovd on this, times and points should have been left to stand. It's the riders own fault that they didn't bother to compete especially over the last 20km where the roads were largely dry anyway.
 
I agree with Hushovd as well, Cancerella shouldn't have so much sway. Having said that, the other cyclists didn't have to agree to his protest did they? They simply saw a chance to get away with not losing more ground on the leaders.

Terrible decision by the jury.
 
Mind you, in a post stage interview, Cancarella said that he did it to group everyone up in order to get everyone over the finish line, and for security with so many people being injured (Farrar breaking his wrist, Vande Velde breaking some ribs, *lots* of open wounds). Chavanel had already largely escaped due to the crash behind him, so there was no real benefit to have individual finishes, bunching the peleton together enabled them to finish quicker, resulting is lower times, which would help more overall.

Of course, he also slowed things up to help his team, but I guess that was inevitable.
 
Well todays stage is beginning to get exciting. 45km left, and the peloton is reeling the breakaways in slowly but surely.
 
Evans is looking good, if he can pull out a few minutes on Contador before the hills. Who knows?


EDIT: seems Contador isn't that far behind :(
 
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Sadgeek said:
I don't know a lot about cycling, and only really started watching the Tour last year whilst I was unemployed, so what I'm about to say probably goes against some unwritten rules of racing.

Why should one man (Cancellara) decide whether or not that the stage should stand as a race? From what I could see, he has some clout as both a senior rider and the (then) holder of the yellow jersey, so having a word with the commissars isn't a problem as such, but I do think he was told to go slow because his team leaders were involved in a couple of the crashes. Tough!

Can you imaging the uproar if (and I'll use the F1 comparison as most people are familiar with it) Jenson Button went off on the first corner and had to pit for a new nose-cone, whilst Hamilton backed the pack up and McLaren told everyone to not pass him until Button had got back on track and joined the group?

What's the point of having a race, if teams then decide (and pretty much force the hand of the commissars due to the riders actions) to nullify a section?

I'm with Hushovd on this, times and points should have been left to stand. It's the riders own fault that they didn't bother to compete especially over the last 20km where the roads were largely dry anyway.
Click to expand...

Theres an unwritten rule that you dont profit from a crash, or at least certainly dont attack, so if a GC contender crashes but can continue, its usual practice for the peleton to wait for them to catch up again.

I dont have a problem with that part on monday, but Cancellera took it too far with nullifying the race at what should have been the sprint.
 
Well done Cav. :D

proper made up he won today. After yesterdays dissapointment he needed that to lift his confidence a bit.

Another flatish stage tomorrow if he can get a good lead out and get his legs going.
 
Yup, Awseome to see Cav take todays stage. As usual the HTC team buried themselves to get him in a good position and he then destroyed the other sprinters to take the stage.

A big cheer from me tonight as i watched the highlights :)
 
He hee, Cav takes another stage, Geraint Thomas still in 2nd and only 20 secs off of yellow jersey :)

And tomorrow they start to climb, can't wait :D
 
There's a good chance Thomas will be in yellow at the end of today - that might give Sky a dilemma!

Great to see Cav back in form :)
 
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