Stage 6 Review
By Paul Sherwen


Once again a flat stage showed how any stage of the Tour can be dangerous and exciting. The heavy rain made the surface slick and provoked a lot of crashes on the run in to Barcelona. The field was decimated by crashes before the final two kilometre climb to the Barcelona Olympic stadium finish but most of the big boys kept upright and out of danger.

It was so close for Garmin's David Millar who had been in a near race long breakaway with three other riders and felt strong enough to go it alone with
18 miles remaining. At six miles to go he was still one minute in front of a charging main pack and it looked like he was going to take the win.

That's when the crashes started, splitting the pack into many groups creating chaos. I thought that this confusion might just slow down the chase and give the Scot the win. However there were a  lot of sprinters who felt that this finish was to their suiting and their team-mates dragged them to his back wheel inside of the last mile.

Then Oscar Freire made a couple of mistakes, probably because he was too nervous in front of a huge Spanish crowd. He responded violently to two attacks and this probably robbed him of the energy he needed to hold off Thor Hushovd's lunge for the line.

More surprising was that throughout the day team Astana of Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador conducted themselves as if they were the leaders of the bike race. They set the pace at all the dangerous points of the course putting fear into the hearts of all their adversaries on the eve of the first big Pyrenean stage.

It was this attitude which kept them all at the front of the pack when the crashes happened and none of their team lost any time- or any skin!!
Tomorrow  a different group of riders will take centre stage as the contenders must now come out to play and we will get the first indication as to whether or not Lance Armstrong is a serious contender for the title this year.