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Petacchi wins as crashes ignite 4th of July fireworks

July 4, 2010 5 Comments

Stage 1: Rotterdam > Bruxelles (223.5 km)

If yesterday’s prologue in rainy Rotterdam was, literally, a damp squib, then today’s finish in Brussels delivered fireworks befitting today’s date: the Fourth of July. After an incendiary finish in which three separate crashes wiped out much of the pack in the final two kilometres, it was Lampre‘s veteran sprinter Alessandro Pettachi who claimed a fifth career Tour win.

The Tour de France is a race steeped in tradition and ritual, from the distinctive jerseys worn by the leaders of the various competitions to a variety of conventions and unwritten rules designed to achieve nothing in particular other than fulfil a long-established sense of propriety and honour. It was no coincidence that today’s stage passed by the home town of the legendary Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx, five-time winner of the Tour, who celebrated his 65th birthday last month.

At least four boxes on the traditional Tour de France bingo card were ticked off on today’s stage alone:

1. On the race’s first long, flat stage, an early break slipped away from the peloton and pulled out a sizeable lead, only to be reeled in well before the finish. Today’s three riders giving their sponsors valuable TV exposure as the race passed from Holland into Belgium were Rabobank’s Lars Boom (a Dutch rider on a Dutch team), Quick Step‘s Maarten Wynants (a Belgian rider on a Belgian team) and Euskaltel-Euskadi‘s Alan Perez (as a Spaniard on a Spanish team, the odd man out).

2. A random animal incident. Today’s involved a dog and Ivan Basso, also bringing down Britain’s David Millar (third overall) and Levi Leipheimer. As Leipheimer commented on his Twitter feed:

Hit the deck today after someone brought their dog to the race without a leash.

3. A rider being allowed to ride just ahead of the peloton as the route passes through or near their home town, so they can greet their family and receive the adulation of the crowd. Today, it was Sky‘s Belgian rider Serge Pauwels.

4. A big crash as nerves beset the sprinters’ teams, all of whom are jostling to assert themselves over one another in these early days of the race.

Stage 1 winner Alessandro Petacchi

And so it came to pass. On a day which was always going to centre on a pack of sprinters all keen to draw first blood in the green jersey competition, tensions were bound to run high in the closing kilometres once the break had been hauled in. Combine this collective twitchiness with a tricky uphill drag to the finish, and it appeared that all sprinters’ teams wanted to be around the head of the peloton without driving the pace too hard too early. As a result the field, normally strung out into a long, thin line on the run-in to the finish, remained bunched up. As the peloton swept into a tight, downhill, right-hand corner less than two kilometres out, it appeared that Mark Cavendish ran slightly wide and triggered a domino effect which brought down several riders and slowed everyone behind.

There then followed two more crashes inside the closing kilometre – the first of these ripping through the pack like a tidal wave – taking out, among others, yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara and Tyler Farrar, the Garmin-Transitions sprinter who is based in nearby Ghent and was desperately seeking a win on his ‘home’ turf. But the American was taken out from behind by AG2R‘s Lloyd Mondory, and with hardly any of the serious sprinters left, the 36-year old Petacchi led a somewhat muted charge over the line to claim his first Tour de France stage since he won four of the opening five individual road stages in 2003.

As the rest of the field trickled across the finish unhurriedly in dribs and drabs (in situations where a crash occurs in the final three kilometres, time losses are nullified, effectively freezing the GC order), many were left to lick their wounds and assess the damage.

Cavendish himself seemed relatively unruffled as he rode past reporters without stopping, saying:

I’m OK It’s just life, isn’t it?

But it will be interesting to see how much blame is ascribed to the Manxman, particularly after his role in the crash at the Tour de Suisse which left several riders injured and forced Heinrich Haussler out of the Tour. To me it looked like one of those things: Cav possibly over-cooked the corner and had nowhere to go in a pack which was much more tightly bunched than normal. These things happen at the Tour, particularly in the first week before an informal hierarchy and understanding between the teams and riders – another Tour tradition – establishes itself.

All in all, it was a bad day for Cav. A golden chance to win and stake an early claim to the green jersey – and with it the opportunity to settle his nerves – has gone, with no points he has lost significant ground to Petacchi and Thor Hushovd (who finished third), and his HTC-Columbia team will be hoping that a scan on an injury to Adam Hansen, one of his key lead-out men, does not confirm a suspected broken collarbone.

For Petacchi and Lampre, however, their aspirations for the entire Tour have already been fulfilled. The Italian refused to devalue his win, claiming he might well have beaten Cavendish anyway:

I did a very risky sprint. I attacked from far out, despite the head wind and the false-flat road. I’m not sure that Cavendish would have beat me if he’d been there at the end because I’ve really done a great sprint.

As the race passed from Holland into Belgium, hundreds of thousands of local fans – including Richard Tulloch in Rotterdam – lined the roads enthusiastically to catch a few brief moments of the high-speed rainbow that is the Tour peloton streaking by. The reception certainly left an impression on many of the riders, with BMC’s Brent Bookwalter posting on Twitter:

Wow! Now I’m beginning to understand all the fuss about the Tour de France. Never seen so many people, ever, anywhere. A tunnel of noise and colours all day.

And Liquigas’s Manuel Quinziato added:

Never seen so many [people] watching a bike race! Millions! Made me proud to do this job! Once again!

Lance Armstrong, who has seen pretty much everything there is to see when it comes to the Tour’s vagaries, perhaps summed up the day best when he said:

Total mayhem, definitely in the finish. It was a typical first stage. Everyone wants to be in the front.

Millions and millions of people on the road is a blessing and a curse. It’s so great to have so many supporters but it makes the guys super nervous.  The guys are always dodging people.

And on these tight roads you saw in the final it shouldn’t be any surprise that there would be some crashes there.  Everybody is okay [on Team RadioShack]. It just shows you how crazy it’s going to be on Tuesday [over the cobbles]. You saw the nerves today. We’ll have the same situation on very small roads. The nerves and intensity will be high.

Tomorrow sees the race finish at the town of Spa, well-known for its historical Formula 1 circuit. The up-and-down nature of the final 50 km on stage two could present some tricky challenges for the unwary. A bit like today, really.

For full coverage of the Tour de France, I would recommend either the official website or alternatively steephill.tv as your one-stop shop for race reports, photos and videos.

And for alternative, well-informed views on the race, please visit Todd Kinsey’s blog.

Stage 1 result:

1.  Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre) 5:09:38

2.  Mark Renshaw (Columbia) same time

3.  Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) s/t

4.  Robbie McEwen  (Katusha) s/t

5.  Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ) s/t

6.  Daniel Oss (Liquigas-Doimo) s/t

7.  Jose Joaquin Rojas (Caisse d’Epargne) s/t

8.  Christian Knees (Team Milram) s/t

9.  Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) s/t

10. Jürgen Roelandts  (Omega Pharma-Lotto) s/t

General classification (yellow jersey):

1. Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) 0:10:00

2. Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) +0:10

3. David Millar (Garmin-Transitions) +0:20

4. Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) +0:22

5. Geraint Thomas (Sky) +0:23

6. Alberto Contador (Astana) +0:27

7. Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions) +0:28

8. Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) +0:28

9. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) +0:32

10. Linus Gerdemann (Milram) +0:35

Selected others:

23. Cadel Evans (BMC) +0:39

70. Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo) +0:55

72. Denis Menchov +0:56

75. Bradley Wiggins (Sky) +0:56

77. Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank) +0:57

119. Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) +1:09

Points classification (green jersey):

1. Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre) 35 pts

2. Mark Renshaw (HTC-Columbia) 30

3. Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) 26

4. Robbie McEwen (Katusha) 24

5. Matthieu Ladagnous 22

Climbers’ classification (polka dot jersey):

No points yet.

Stage 2 preview:

Start & finish: Bruxelles > Spa

Distance & type: 201 km, hilly

Prediction: A lumpy stage featuring a number of short but steep climbs used in the Ardennes classics. The category three pair of the Col de Stockeu and Col du Rosier are likely to decimate the sprinters well before the finish. This could end up being a small bunch sprint contended by some of the Tour hard men or even a free-for-all. There is also a chance of splits in the peloton allowing a small group to escape and stay away to the line. Fabian Cancellara and Saxo Bank will have their hands full if they want to retain the yellow jersey.

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Tour de France: Bloggers you might like to read

July 4, 2010 3 Comments

In the course of writing my preview blogs for this year’s Tour de France, I have come into contact with a broad cross-section of fans of the race – some relative newbies, others with a depth of knowledge and experience that I find humbling, but all united by a common passion for one of the great events in all sport, not just cycling. Not everyone I have encountered shares the same opinions as I do, but for me that’s part of the fun. Especially if, like me, the vast majority of your friends glaze over when you start babbling on every July about pelotons and echelons, rouleurs and grimpeurs, lead-out trains and the autobus, random Alpine and Pyrenean mountain passes and ski resorts (which you describe with almost pathological hushed reverence), and 198 men in lycra getting really silly tan lines and sores in places one shouldn’t discuss in polite company.

My July is already a better place for having encountered the following bloggers. Why not drop in and give their blogs a visit? With apologies to anyone I have left out, and in no particular order, click on the following links:

Todd Kinsey’s TDF blog – A cyclist and endurance athlete, read Todd’s previews, prologue liveblog and ongoing daily updates for everything you need to know about what’s happening in the race.

Marc’s sports blog – For views and articles on the Tour de France and a variety of other sports.

Cyclingproject365 – A photographer and self-proclaimed ‘newbie cyclist’, if you’re an Armstrong or Cancellara fan you will be in good company here!

Joe-Pinions: Sports – For discussions and opinions on a wide variety of sporting topics, capturing a personal fascination with sports in all its myriad facets, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Richard Tulloch’s Life on the Road – Travel adventures on wheels and legs from Richard, who splits time between Amsterdam and Sydney.

SportPH – Dedicated to sport in general, but with a particular focus on the two-wheeled variety during this month.

39 stone cyclist – Gary Brennan’s blog. A cyclist and cycling fan with an inspiring personal story to tell.

My agnostic views & images I like – Views from a Canadian Lance Armstrong fan.

Finally, here are a couple of blogs from riders participating on the Tour. If you want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, try:

Cadel’s diary – Brief but refreshingly honest appraisals by Cadel Evans, team leader of BMC.

Chris Horner’s Team RadioShack diary – The inside track from one of Lance Armstrong’s own RadioShack teammates.

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World Cup quarter-finals 3 & 4: Two missed penalties and a German demolition job

July 4, 2010 4 Comments

Argentina 0 Germany 4

Miroslav Klose now has 14 World Cup goals, one short of Ronaldo's all-time record

We can now finally lay to rest the question of whether Germany are actually any good. They are, most emphatically.

In dismantling an Argentina side who many had tipped to reach the final, Joachim Löw‘s team played with style, desire and confidence, inflicting Argentina’s heaviest World Cup defeat since 1958.

Thomas Müller set the ball rolling, heading in Bastain Schweinsteiger‘s free kick after just 160 seconds, the fastest goal of the tournament. They had to wait until the final quarter of the game to score again as Argentina enjoyed the lion’s share of the ball while creating little in the way of genuine threat. But on 67 minutes Miroslav Klose scored his 13th career World Cup goal, tapping in strike partner Lukas Podolski‘s precise ball across the six-yard box, effectively ending the match as a contest. Seven minutes later, Schweinsteiger skipped past a succession of tackles on the left before pulling the ball back for Arne Friedrich to score his first international goal. And finally, the always influential Schweinsteiger sent Mesut Özil clear to cross for Klose to apply icing to cake with a fine volley.

Diego Maradona‘s team simply ran out of ideas, and steam. They dominated possession and asked questions of the German defence time and again, but they never really unlocked the door. And with Lionel Messi effectively shackled they lacked the creative spark to force it open. By the end they were a sorry side who looked anything but potential champions. Germany, on the other hand, are looking increasingly like a side who genuinely believe the greatest prize is within their grasp. The towels are being laid down at Soccer City as we speak.

Key numbers:

1 – Including this game, Argentina have won just one out of their six World Cup matches against Germany.

4 – Miroslav Klose has now scored four goals at the 2010 World Cup, one more than he did in the Bundesliga in the whole of last season.

4 – Thomas Müller has had four shots on target at this tournament – and has scored with all four of them.

2:40 – At two minutes and 40 seconds, Müller scored the fastest goal of the tournament so far.

20 – Germany have never gone more than 20 years without winning a World Cup. It is exactly 20 years since they last won it …

Paraguay 0 Spain 1

David Villa now has five goals and leads the Golden Boot competition

As a certain Scottish football manager once said: “Football, bloody hell!” Much of this quarter-final between Paraguay and Spain was instantly forgettable – but a four-minute cameo will be remembered forever.

Paraguay set out their stall to defend, in keeping with a formula which had conceded just one goal in four games to this point. Spain came to do what Spain do, namely move the ball around with pace, patience and precision. For 57 minutes, irresistible force met immovable object, with stalemate the inevitable result. This was not entertaining fare.

And then it all changed. Gerard Piqué cynically grabbed Oscar Cardozo as the Paraguay forward spun away from him at a corner. Cardozo himself got up to take the penalty, and he will wish he hadn’t bothered as his tame effort was far too close to Iker Casillas, who easily held on to the shot.

Almost immediately, Spain were up at the other end and David Villa went down under a challenge by Antolin Alcaraz. The penalty award looked a bit soft, but equally Alcaraz was arguably fortunate to avoid a straight red card for the clear denial of a goalscoring opportunity. Xabi Alonso swept home the spot kick, only for Guatemalan referee Carlos Batres to order it re-taken for (marginal) encroachment by a number of Spain players. This time Paraguay goalkeeper Justo Villar parried Alonso’s penalty. Cesc Fabregas followed up and was clearly upended by Villar, but the referee missed the infringement.

It was almost incidental when, with eight minutes remaining, Pedro‘s shot rebounded off the woodwork and David Villa followed up with a curling effort that cannoned off one post and then the other before rolling almost apologetically over the line for the goal which put Spain into the World Cup semi-final for the first time in their history. In the context of those mad four minutes, it was a positively mundane event.

So, it will now be Spain versus Germany – two of the tournament’s most attractive sides – on Wednesday evening for a place in what could be an all-European final. So much for the theory that the old continent is on the wane in a tournament which has seen an all-time low number of European teams in both the last 16 (six) and quarter-finals (three).

Key numbers:

6 – Paraguay became the first World Cup team to make six or more changes to their starting line-up from one knockout game to the next (excluding the 3rd/4th place playoff).

1 – This was Spain‘s first ever World Cup quarter-final win.

11 – 11 of Spain’s 15 shots against Paraguay (and all 4 on target) came in the 34 minutes after Cesc Fabregas came on as a substitute.

2 – This was only the second time in the World Cup’s history that two penalties (excluding shootouts) have been missed in the same match. The previous occasion was in the inaugural 1930 tournament, during Argentina’s 6-3 win over Mexico.

2:03 – There was a gap of just two minutes and three seconds between the two penalties being awarded in this match.

5 – David Villa is now the tournament’s highest goalscorer, having scored five in the last four games.

4 – This is the first World Cup in which Spain have won four games.

(Statistics courtesy of @optajoao, @optajose, @optajoe, @castrolfootball and FIFA statistics.)

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Lucky 13 for Cancellara as Wiggins’ gamble backfires

July 4, 2010 6 Comments

Prologue: Rotterdam > Rotterdam (8.9 km)

With the impeccable timing and precision which has historically characterised his nation, Swiss time trial ace Fabian Cancellara claimed the first yellow jersey of the 2010 Tour de France as the race kicked off with yesterday’s 8.9 km prologue time trial in Rotterdam.

One of the unwritten rules of the Tour in recent years is that whenever the race opens with a prologue or short time trial stage, Cancellara wins. Yesterday marked his third such successive win: he won the 2007 prologue in London and last year’s 15 km opener in Monaco (in 2008 the race began with a standard road stage). He also won the 2004 prologue.

Prologue winner Fabian Cancellara

Cancellara was the odds-on favourite to win the prologue, no surprise given his previous form and a flat course with wide, open corners which favoured his powerful riding style. He was undeterred by the fact he had been given 13 as his race number, deliberately wearing it upside down for good luck, just as he had done when given the same number at the 2007 Tour:

[It was] the same as I did in London. It brought me luck then and I thought it would bring me luck again.

For much of a damp afternoon, though, it was HTC-Columbia‘s Tony Martin whose name stood on top of the rankings with a time of 10:10. As the steady rain continued after he had finished, it looked like he might remain there, as successive riders lost chunks of time tiptoeing around the wet corners. Only Garmin-Transitions‘ David Millar – previously the winner of the short time trial which opened the 2000 Tour – came close to matching Martin’s time, finishing just ten seconds adrift.

However, the rain did eventually stop, giving those with a late start time – namely most of the big GC contenders – the advantage of a drying surface. One by one the big names set off – Cadel Evans, 2008 overall winner Carlos Sastre, Ivan Basso, Lance Armstrong – and all fell short. Armstrong came closest with a good run which left him 12 seconds down om Martin, doubly impressive coming as it did less than 24 hours after the Wall Street Journal had published further accusations of doping by former teammate – and disgraced 2006 winner – Floyd Landis to supplement initial allegations published in May.

At the stage finish, Martin watched on impassively, waiting for Cancellara, the penultimate rider and the one man he knew represented the single biggest threat to his hopes of claiming a maiden Grand Tour victory. Sure enough, the Swiss was faster than Martin at the intermediate split, and sustained his power right through to the finish, stopping the clock at ten minutes dead to win by ten seconds. All that was left was to confirm the time of defending champion Alberto Contador, the last man out of the start-house: 27 seconds down on Cancellara, and the identity of the Tour’s first yellow jersey was confirmed.

Cancellara was delighted with his win:

It rained a lot early on this afternoon and I kept on praying the good weather would come back. I said to my team-mates it would be nice to win in exactly ten minutes and when the sun came out again, I knew my luck had held and that target would be realistic.

By its very nature, the short length of the prologue precludes any decisive conclusions about riders’ form. particularly in such changeable conditions. Bradley Wiggins labelled it as “insignificant”, but nonetheless Armstrong’s time, fastest among the leading contenders and five seconds faster than Contador was particularly impressive.

The Tour’s only seven-time champion is participating in the race for the last time. He was cautiously optimistic after the stage:

The testing I’ve been doing, both based on time and on wattage, is where I need to be and we just have to see how the others run.

You can’t forget though that some guys went when it was absolutely soaking wet. That obviously plays a factor into the times and into the results. You’ve got to consider those guys that didn’t have the advantage of the dry corners.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It was a good ride, I felt good, the team looked good, but this is a long three weeks, beginning tomorrow, into the pavé, then into the Alps.

Britain’s Wiggins, who is hoping to improve on last year’s breakthrough fourth place, gambled on an early starting time in the hope of benefitting from better conditions. The gamble backfired. Setting out about half an hour after Tony Martin, he experienced some of the worst conditions of the day, and took no risks in coming in 77th, 56 seconds down on Cancellara and 34 on Armstrong. Afterwards he put a brave face on it, saying:

The prologue is insignificant in the three weeks. You can lose seconds here, but the difference is going to be minutes in three weeks. I said all along the prologue wasn’t the be all and end all for me, so I’m just pleased to have got round in one piece.

Wiggins was not alone. A clutch of other top riders who set off in drier conditions – including Ivan Basso, Denis Menchov and Frank Schleck – finished with nearly identical times to Wiggins, and second-favourite Andy Schleck is a further 13 seconds behind. He is absolutely right that 30 seconds or so at this early point is not in itself a huge issue, but it does reduce the margin of error, placing an onus on these riders not to make any small errors in the first week which would add to their deficit. With the prospect of disruptive crosswinds tomorrow and the hazard of the Paris-Roubaix cobbles to come on Tuesday, there are certainly plenty of opportunities for mishaps before the race arrives at its first mountains next weekend.

From a British individual and team perspective, there was much scope for encouragement despite Wiggins’ misfortune, with two British riders in the top five. David Millar was third, and Wiggins’ Olympic teammate Geraint Thomas an impressive fifth for the debuting Team Sky, who also saw Edvald Boasson Hagen finish ninth.

Further down the timesheets in 127th was the Isle of Man’s Mark Cavendish, winner of ten stages in the last two Tours. But that was to be expected, with he and most of his sprint rivals electing to pootle round and save their legs. (Defending green jersey Thor Hushovd, a very good time trial rider, was down in 157th.) Yesterday was just about making it through without any mishaps. Today they will expect to take centre stage on the first stage proper, at the beginning of a week which will feature the green jersey contenders prominently.

For full coverage of the Tour de France, I would recommend either the official website or alternatively steephill.tv as your one-stop shop for race reports, photos and videos.

And for alternative, well-informed views on the race, please visit Todd Kinsey’s blog and Marc’s sports blog and share the Tour love!

Prologue result & General classification:

1. Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) 0:10:00

2. Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) +0:10

3. David Millar (Garmin-Transitions) +0:20

4. Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) +0:22

5. Geraint Thomas (Sky) +0:23

6. Alberto Contador (Astana) +0:27

7. Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions) +0:28

8. Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) +0:28

9. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) +0:32

10. Linus Gerdemann (Milram) +0:35

Selected others:

23. Cadel Evans (BMC) +0:39

72. Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo) +0:55

74. Denis Menchov +0:56

77. Bradley Wiggins (Sky) +0:56

79. Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank) +0:57

122 Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) +1:09

Points classification (green jersey):

1. Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) 15 pts

2. Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) 12

3. David Millar (Garmin-Transitions)10

4. Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) 8

5. Geraint Thomas (Sky) 6

Climbers’ classification (polka dot jersey):

No points yet.

Stage 1 preview:

Start & finish: Rotterdam > Bruxelles

Distance & type: 223.5 km, plain

Prediction: Likely to be a mass sprint, although the peloton may end up being split by crosswinds blowing in off the North Sea. Don’t be surprised if there is a crash in the closing kilometres as the sprinters’ teams, all keen to taste first blood in this year’s Tour, flex their muscles and attempt to establish a pecking order. May suit someone like Tyler Farrar, who is based in nearby Ghent and claimed a win on similar terrain at the Delta Tour Zeeland.

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