2011 Tour de France, Stage 17

Today’s stage is 179km and runs from Gap to Pinerolo; yes, the Tour de France will head into Italy today.

Within the firs 10km, a 10-man break has formed: Gerdermann, Thomas, Hagen, Di Gregorio, Sanchez ,  Costa, Casar, Hondo, Van Garderen, De Gendt. Hushovd and Roche tried to attack the peloton to bridge a gap to the breakaway sitting at about 40” ahead, but the peloton wouldn’t let them go. However, with 139km remaining the group was brought back.

With 119km left, a new attack group has formed, and they quickly have 1’30” on the peloton: Hagen, Perez, Tjallingii, Fofonov, Muravyev, Amador, Paterski, Chavanel, El Fares, Casar, Bozic, Leukmans, Hivert, and Mollema. By the beginning of the first climb, the lead was 4’30”.

Tiralongo has abandoned the race.

At the summit, Chavanel take the most KOM points, followed by El Fares. Caser takes the lead over the intermediate sprint line. At the second climb Chavanel got 2 points while Leukmans got 1.

With 88km remaining, the lead grew to 7’15”.

Chavanel takes maximum points at the 3rd summit.

82km from the finish, Hoogerland, Roche, and De Weert attack the peloton and try to chase down the breakaway. De Weert is doing the most work and is able to cut the gap to the leaders in half within minutes.

Perez attacked the breakaway with 4km to go until the summit. He hit the summit solo, and Chavanel brought the rest of the leaders over the line. With 31km remaining, Perez has an 8’10” gap over the peloton.

The peloton drops a lot of riders on this final climb, including Farrar and Cavendish.

Perez is caught on the ascent, and Chavanel attacks. Hagen catches up to him and then attacks. The leaders catch up to Chavanel, and he attacks again to no avail. Then Hivert attacks. Hagen has a 25 second lead with 10km to go. Chavanel goes again and then Mollema while Contador attacks the peloton.

A. Schleck, Voeckler, and Evans follow Contador and soon they are all back together.

Contador attacks again, followed by A. Schleck and Evans. Then F. Schleck attacks and is followed by Contador and others.

Hivert crashes on the descent, but is able to get back up and chase.

Basso sets the pace for the rest of the acsent and A. Schleck leads the CG contenders down. Hivert again crashes, this time into a parked car. Again, he is okay.

Voeckler attacks, but almost misses a corner. Contador attacks and is clear. Voeckler ends up crashing into the same parked car as Hivert in another missed corner. The GC contenders finish together though, but it is Hagen who takes the win!

 Stage 17 Results:
1 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling 4:18:00
2 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team 0:00:40
3 Sandy Casar (Fra) FDJ 0:00:50
4 Julien El Fares (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne 0:00:50
5 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quickstep Cycling Team 0:00:50
6 Dmitriy Fofonov (Kaz) Pro Team Astana 0:01:10
7 Maciej Paterski (Pol) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:01:10
8 Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team RadioShack 0:01:10
9 Jonathan Hivert (Fra) Saur - Sojasun 0:01:15

2011 Tour de France, Stage 13

Today’s stage is a short 156km from Pau to Lourdes, with only one huge climb, but three climbs total, a category 3, a category 4, and an HC.

We are down to 174 riders. There were two non-starters today: Steegmans, who was in a stage 5 crash, just found out that he fractured a wrist bone, and Galimzyanov, who finished outside the time limit yesterday. He crossed the finish line almost an hour after Sanchez!

There was an initial breakaway of two riders and five more joined them. However before any names could be announced the peloton caught them while averaging 50-60km/h!

Then there was a 15 man group, but again they couldn’t get far.

At about 122km left of the stage, Kloden abandoned. He’s been suffering since his crash yesterday, and hasn’t had time to recover. Also Isaichev threw in the towel.

Vandenert takes the most points over the top of the first climb.

There were many more attacks large groups that get swallowed back up.

Boom also abandoned today after losing over 5 minutes on the peloton.

At 90km from the finish, we finally have a stable breakaway: Tjallingii, Hushovd, Fofonov, Hagen, Pineau, Roy, Moncoutié, Petacchi, Gusev, and Bak. A lot of big names, but Gusev is the best placed rider, sitting at 28th, down 11'13". At 87km from the finsh, the breakaway had over 4 minutes.

Roy took the lone KOM point on the category 4 climb.

The leading 10 did not sprint at the intermediate sprint. Hagen took the most points, followed by Moncoutié. Rojas led the peloton across, in front of Cavendish.

After the sprint, Hushovd attacked his group. He reached a 17” lead before he was joined by Roy.  Moncoutié and Hagen formed a 2-man chase group. Back in the peloton there were a bunch of counter-attacks.

As the last climb gets steeper, riders are being dropped from the peloton: Farrar, Cavendish (who’s being helped by teammate Eisel), Cancellara, Greipel, Hoogerland, Thomas, and Chavanel. Roy has also managed to loose Hushovd, however Moncoutié has caught up and passed Hushovd on his way to Roy.

Of course Roy crossed the summit first, with Hushovd two minutes back. Hushovd caught Moncoutié on the descent. Gilbert had attacked the peloton as goes solo.

With 6km to go, Moncoutié is not helping Hushovd, so Hushovd attacks and is able to catch Roy. Moncoutié catches up and Roy can’t go anymore. Hushovd attacks again and he is the winner of Stage 13!!

Stage 13 Results:
1 Hushovd
2 Moncoutie
3 Roy
4 Bak
5 Pineau
6 Hagen
7 Gusev
8 Tjallingii
9 Petacchi
10 Gilbert