THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Pozzato wins; Cancellara defends; Astana crashes
While Italian heartthrob Filippo Pozzato earned a hard-fought sprint win in stage 5 of the Tour de France, Thursday's big news developed at the back of the pack, where pre-race favorite Alexandre Vinokourov lost 1:20 to his fellow GC contenders after crashing hard with 26km to go in the testing 182.2km run from Chablis to Autun.
The Astana team leader ripped a gaping hole in the right side of his bib shorts. His elbow, hip and knee were all badly scraped and bloody. The trauma didn't end there, though, as Vino' had to call on all but two of his teammates to aid in a furious chase back to the bunch, which was moving fast in pursuit of final two members of the day's prominent breakaway. By the end of the stage Vinokourov was on his own, save for a dozen or so dropped riders latched onto his wheel.
The news got even worse for Astana after the stage when team management revealed that co-captain Andreas Klöden had a hairline fracture of the coccyx and is questionable for Friday. The German crashed in a ditch midway through the stage, and though he finished safely in the bunch, Klöden and Vino' were taken to the hospital soon after.
Among the trailing group riding with the Astana leader at the end was Belgian Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic), who lost the green points jersey after getting dropped on the last of eight rated climbs that made Thursday the toughest day of the 2007 Tour thus far.
With Boonen and Predictor-Lotto's Robbie McEwen out of the picture, Pozzato took advantage of his opportunity, blasting up the left side of the road, then weaving his way to the line in 4:39:01, just a quarter-wheel length ahead of Spaniard Oscar Freire (Rabobank) who was second. Italian Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) took third, and ageless German Erik Zabel (Milram) came home fifth, taking over the top spot in the point standings, a title he won six times between 1996 and 2001.
“I knew the final kilometer to the finish was for me,” said Pozzato, 25, who scored the second Tour stage win of his career. “At 250 meters I touched Bennati because there was a barrier. I had two possibilities, brake or attack. I decided to make my sprint and I am very happy that I have won. I would have preferred to win with my arms up. Today I showed that I can win at the Tour.”
In the overall, Fabian Cancellara maintained his precarious hold on the yellow jersey, finishing safely in the bunch. The Swiss CSC rider is 33 seconds up on Klöden, with stage winner Pozzato jumping to third at 0:35. Stage 4 winner Thor Hushovd fell out of the top three after getting popped on the day's second-to-last climb, the Cat. 2 Haut-Folin.
“When we saw the other teams working [to bring the break back] we decided to help,” explained Cancellara, whose team director Kim Andersen had said before the stage that CSC would not aggressively defend the jersey. “We played the lottery and won.”
Astana were the big losers. Besides the sizable time loss for Vinokourov, it also saw team co-leader Klöden hit the deck, crashing in a grassy ditch on the side of the road at the 107km mark.
“We spoke to Vino' on the radio, but we couldn't say much,” explained Astana team manager Marc Biver. “We gave him six riders and they did an extraordinary job and went full-gas for kilometers to try to bring him back. Then Vino' was left on his own.
“What do you want me to say? It's the beauty and cruelty of this sport. We must not overdramatize the situation. If we don't win the Tour - there's 2008. We haven't given up hope ... If Vino' is in good health and he wants to win the Tour, we have no choice but to attack.”
Thursday's stage rolled away from Chablis under sunny skies, and it was only minutes before the action began. After a few early digs, Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) got away. The Frenchman's first sortie was fruitless, but he jumped again with two others and that move stuck. At the 30km mark, Chavanel, William Bonnet (Crédit Agricole) and Phillippe Gilbert (Française des Jeux) were four minutes ahead of the field, with lone chaser Gianpaolo Cheula (Barloworld) drifting in the middle. Cheula would eventually bridge the gap, making it a group of four, and the four fugitives crested the category-4 Côte Grandes-Chatenaines at 39.5km with an 11-minute advantage.
Chavanel was part of the long five-man breakaway on Wednesday, and would have taken over the climber's jersey had he not backed off on the final climb in deference to teammate Stephan Auge. But there was no such goodwill Thursday, as Chavanel gobbled up KoM points all day to take over the top spot in the King of the Mountains standings. He finished the day with 37 points, 14 ahead of second-placed Gilbert.
Back in the bunch CSC was nowhere to be found, unwilling to expend too much energy to defend Cancellara's place atop the general classification. It was understandable, considering the team's stated pre-race goal was earning Spaniard Carlos Sastre a place on the final podium, something he missed by just one spot a year ago.
Chavanel scored the first-place points on the category-3 Côte de Champignolles-le-Bas, pushing him ahead of teammate Auge in the KoM standings for good. Meanwhile, the break's gap kept rising, topping out at 14:40 before a collective of teams lent horsepower to the chase. With 109.5km the advantage had returned to a more reasonable 9:28, and 10km later it was 7:08.
The field was reduced by two on Thursday, with Frenchman Remy Di Gregorio (Française des Jeux) and Brett Lancaster (Milram) both dropping out. Di Gregorio pulled out at the end of Wednesday's stage after he was involved in the same crash that eliminated Caisse d'Epargne's Xabier Zandio with a broken collarbone. Lancaster made it to the start line Thursday, but midway though the stage the Aussie succumbed to a stomach ailment, stepping off his bike and into the team car.
Chavanel expanded his KoM advantage by three more points, taking first over the Cat. 4 Côte Coulon at the 86.5km mark. The peloton passed over at 7:08. It was more of the same on the category-3 Côte de St-Maurice, with Chavanel adding to his lead. Meanwhile, the gap continued to drop, with the peloton just 5:15 back 98.5km into the 182.5km day.
Back in the bunch, the pacemaking was a shared affair as the field sped along twisty, narrow roads. Liquigas, Rabobank, Discovery and occasionally CSC were all taking pulls. At 76.2km, the peloton was strung out in a long line and the gap was 4:28.
For the fourth straight day, several riders hit the deck, including Klöden. The German was slow getting up, but easily regained the bunch with the help of two teammates. Last year's third-place finisher then spent several minutes talking to the race doctor, drifting back into the field at the 70km mark.
Earlier, Iban Mayo (Saunier Duval-Prodir) went down, but he too jumped right back on his bike and was shepherded back to the bunch by a quintet of teammates. Another crash saw Cofidis's Geoffroy Lequatre go down just past the feedzone at 112.5km, a tattered musette bag in the middle of the road the likely culprit. Discovery’s Benjamin Noval also went down hard near the top of the day’s final climb.
“He's cut on his chin and right arm,” said Discovery team director Johan Bruyneel. “It looks pretty bad.”
Finally, on the narrow road of the Cat. 2 Haut-Folin, at 135.5km, the break came apart, with Chavanel pushing away and only Gilbert able to respond. The pair crested the summit alone, as Chavanel continued his assault on the climbers’ classification. At the top of the ascent, with 47km to go, the gap to the field was 2:13. Bonnet and Cheula were soon swallowed up on the rolling descent off the Haut-Folin.
At the rear of the bunch, the hardest climb thus far in the Tour was taking its toll. Hushovd was the first rider dropped, with Crédit Agricole teammate and '07 Tour de Langkawi winner Anthony Charteau sliding back to make sure the Norwegian didn't lose too much time.
The real trouble for Astana came with 26km to go when Vinokourov slammed onto the road, ripping apart his bib shorts. With the bunch hauling along in furious pursuit of the breakaway, Astana dropped six riders to assist last year's Vuelta a España winner. Vinokourov tried to remain calm, dousing the wounds on his knee and hip with water.
Back at the front Chavanel and Gilbert were 1:28 ahead at the 20km-to-go banner, each taking equal pulls in hopes of making the move stick. But by 15km to go the gap was down to 44 seconds, and it was only a matter of time.
“It was a very hard day,” said American Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel). “There was a lot a collaboration to bring the break back, but guys are going to feel it tomorrow. The last 5km, I was on the limit. I was really feeling it today.”
Farther back, Vino' was in far worse shape, as his team struggled to limit his losses, weaving their way past dropped riders, including McEwen and former KoM Auge, who were dropped on the day's final climb, the third-rated Côte Croix de la Liberation.
“It's the last thing you want to see, someone like Vinokourov lose time like that,” said CSC's Frank Schleck. “We weren't pulling when he crashed. Liquigas was at the front pulling and we didn't even know he crashed until later. It was too late to slow down for him. When the peloton is running 60-70kph and it's the last climb in a stage like today, you cannot stop the peloton.”
At 11.2km to go Gilbert was caught. Moments later Chavanel succumbed. The counterattacks started immediately, with David de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir) taking a shot. The Spaniard failed, but Laurent Lefevre (Bouygues Telecom) made it over the top alone as the final charge to Autun commenced.
At the back Vino' was alone, his teammates all completely spent. That left the Kazakh to weave his own way through a logjam of dropped riders and team cars.
“I didn’t see the crash,” said Toni Colom (Astana). “We started a time trial to try to get him back. We tried 100 percent but we couldn’t do anything. We tried to keep him out of trouble, but during the entire stage it was very nervous.”
At 5km to go Discovery's Yaroslav Popovych launched off the front, but moments later he overcooked a sweeping left-hand turn, drifting into the grass on the side of the road. Cancellara blindly followed the Ukrainian, barely managing to stay upright as he rolled into the same patch of grass.
Soon after the field was all back together and Saunier Duval's David Millar took a gamble, charging into the last kilometer in an effort to catch the sprinters by surprise. Millar's effort was almost successful, but the sprinters' teams swarmed, caught him 200 meters from the line, setting the stage for Pozzato's dramatic triumph.
“It's unfortunate about [Vinokourov’s] crash,” said Pozzato, winner of the 2006 Milan-San Remo. “We wanted to be respectful with a champion like him, but maybe there is less respect for the champions these days. Maybe now he loses the Tour because of this crash.”
Next up at the Tour de France is Stage 6's 199.5km ride from Semur-en-Auxois to Bourg-en-Bresse. There has been just one stage finish in Bourgen-Bresse - 2002, when stage 18 ended in a three-man sprint taken by Norway's Thor Hushovd over Frenchman Christophe Mengin and Denmark's Jakob Piil.
Despite some early hills through the Burgundy and Côte d'Or wine country, this year's iteration is a transitional stage that closes with 45km of long, flat roads into the center of Bourg-en-Bresse. A bunch sprint is very likely.
Stage 5 — top 5
1. Filippo Pozzato (I), Liquigas
2. Oscar Freire (Sp,) Rabobank
3. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre-Fondital
4. Kim Kirchen (Lux), T-Mobile
5. Erik Zabel (G), Milram
Overall
1. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC
2. Andreas Klöden (G), Astana, at 0:33
3. Filippo Pozzato (I), Liquigas, at 0:35
4. David Millar (GB), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 0:41
5. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery, at 0:43
Points
1. Erik Zabel (G), Team Milram, 102 pts
2. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 98
3. Robbie McEwen (Aus), Predictor-Lotto, 84
4. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank, 84
5. Robert Hunter (Rsa), Barloworld, 83
KOM
1. Sylvain Chavanel (F), Cofidis, 37 points
2. Philippe Gilbert (B), Française des Jeux, 23
3. William Bonnet (F), Crédit Agricole, 15
4. Gianpaolo Cheula (I), Barloworld 10
5. Stephane Auge (F), Cofidis, 9
To see how the stage developed, simplyclick here to open our Live Update Window.
