Stage 5 in this year’s Tour De France featured something that opening stages rarely do, but on stage 3 we saw a bit of this, which is a heavy cross wind that can the rip the peloton apart, just like in the mountain stages.
Lance Armstrong, sensing danger with about 60 kilometers to go, had his team move to the front of the peloton and right as the cross wind started to buckle the peloton, lance was perfectly poised to protect his place. Fabian Cancelarra also saw the dangerous moment and moved to the front and did the damage himself.
He saw it was a good moment to put a little power to the pedal and got a big gap. There were three big groups out in this stage and it was tooth and nail for many kilometers. Before the cross wind battle, one of the Dutch hopes, Robert Gesink crashed. He took a long time mounting his machine again. He thought he may have broken his collar bone of wrist.
By the time he was moving again, the bird had flown the coop. there is no way he could have caught up and lost about ten minutes by the end. Lance Armstrong stayed out of trouble and followed his team. Everyone in the front did a great job, including Gregory wrath. It was a beautiful days racing. Lance Armstrong doing exactly what he needs to do, staying out of trouble before the mountain stages.
There was a large break away in this stage. The most famous rider in the push was Thomas Voeckler, the French star rider who held the yellow jersey for 10 days 5 years ago. He has had little success in the Tour De France since then, but has always been an aggressive rider. He has always gone out looking for the break always. Finally we get to see him win a stage in this year’s Tour. He’s a very strong rider. It took him a couple of years to recuperate from winning the yellow jersey and the publicity that accompanied it. He found today’s break away. He was no doubt the absolute strongest rider at the end.
The other riders saw him make a push for the end, but simply did not have the leg strength to respond and he took it all the way to the end. It is a huge win for team Bebop. Very rarely do French riders win stages. None of them have been competitive in the overall standings in many years.
What they are left with from a sponsorship stand point is aggressive riding, and bringing the tour to life at the beginning of each stage. But finally that paid off with a huge win for their team. Hats off to Thomas Voeckler. Congrats for Fabio Cancellara in keeping the yellow jersey for another day, until he will have to kiss it good buy in the mountain stages to a certain American. I’ll give you his initials: L.A. we could be watching history in the making. Don’t miss out.
