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Tour de France stage 2: Hushovd gets the win
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Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) shot out of a chaotic bunch dash to win stage 2 of the 2008 Tour de France on Sunday. Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) finished safely near the front of the peloton to retain the overall lead.
“Yesterday was not a great finish for me,” said Hushovd. “I felt stronger today in the final today. I like Brittany; it's a bit like Norway, always windy and rainy. Maybe I'm not a pure sprinter like Mark Cavendish, but after some hard climbs like today, I usually have some strength left, so maybe that's why I was able to win today."
The 164.5km stage drove north, rising and falling amid blustery winds and rain, from the granite-and-slate cottages of Auray to the port town of St. Brieuc, home to the Badger, five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault.
It was another tough day in the saddle, featuring the Cat. 3 Mur de Bretagne (1.5km at 8.7 percent), 92km into the stage, and a tricky run-in to St. Brieuc that looped down to the English Channel coast before climbing up into town for another uphill finish on the Rue Pierre de Coubertin.
Garmin-Chipotle’s Danny Pate threw down the gauntlet early on, taking off just a half-kilometer into the stage, dogged by Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner), Murilo Fischer (Liquigas), Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), Angel Gomez (Saunier Duval), Ivan Gutierrez (Caisse d'Epargne) and Bernhard Eisel (Columbia).
But it wasn’t the right combo, and before long the leaders were down to Fischer, Chavanel and Wegmann. Soon they, too, were pulled back in as Bouygues Telecom drove the chase for Thomas Voeckler, hoping to pad his lead in the mountains competition.
You can't spell 'Soler' without 'SOL'
Last year’s KoM, Mauricio Soler (Barloworld), was clearly feeling the effects of yesterday’s crash in the chaotic 197.5km first stage. Doctors suspected that he might have broken a bone in his left wrist, but couldn't reach a definitive diagnosis because of swelling.
“He's going to give it a go,” said Barloworld team manager Claudio Corti before the stage got under way. “He'll see how he feels during the race.”
Bjorn Schroeder (Milram) was apparently feeling quite well — tied on points with Voeckler, he tried to jump the polka-dot jersey on the first category-4 climb, the Cote de Bieuzy-Lanvaux. But the diminutive Frenchman would not be caught out, and while Chavanel slipped past for the top points, Voeckler took second, with Schroeder fading back.
All the action opened a small window of opportunity for Chavanel (66th overall at 31 seconds) and Voeckler (127th at 2:00), and the two quickly set about enlarging it. With 127km to race the twosome had two minutes over the bunch, led by the Caisse d’Epargne squad of race leader
Alejandro Valverde. Twenty-five kilometers later their margin was a respectable five minutes.
Meanwhile, the weather in Brittany, one of France’s more exposed regions, began to worsen, adding rain to the omnipresent wind as the leaders drove toward the Mur de Bretagne. Behind, Caisse d’Epargne was picking up the pace, nibbling the lead down to just over four minutes with 82km to race.
The leaders had surrendered another half-minute by the feed zone at Saint-Jean, where yesterday’s snacktime mishap repeated itself — this time it was Nicolas Jalabert (Agritubel) going down as CSC’s Frank Schleck muffed his musette grab. The Frenchman was soon back up and riding, however.
Chavanel led Voeckler over the Mur de Bretagne, a narrow lane made even more so by the hordes of spectators. The peloton crested three minutes later, with former French champion Christophe Moreau (Agritubel) popping out of the bunch to take the third-place KoM points.
Next time up it was Voeckler’s turn — he took top points over the cat.-4 Cote de Saint-Mayeux, ensuring that he will wear the polka-dot jersey going into Monday’s stage 3.
Moreau on the march
Behind, meanwhile, Moreau (70th overall at 0:39) and teammate David Le Lay were trying to bridge to the leaders. The pair quickly took a gap over the bunch as the rain bucketed down once more, and the leaders’ margin began to shrink, with an assist from a mechanical that forced Voeckler to switch bikes with some 60km to race.
In short order the Agritubel chase had closed to within a minute of the leaders, who sat up to wait for the cavalry, while the peloton cycled along more than three minutes in arrears. This ruffled a few feathers among the Française des Jeux mob, whose Philippe Gilbert sat second overall at one second behind Valverde, and the squad contributed a few riders to the pursuit.
With 56km to race it was an all-French foursome in the lead, with Française des Jeux and Caisse d’Epargne flogging the chase along the roller-coaster road. The gap began shrinking, then pegged at about two and a half minutes, with the leaders clearly enjoying the advantage of driving a smaller group along the winding route.
Twenty kilometers further along and the gap was down to 1:45, with Française des Jeux doing the heavy lifting at the front of the chase. With 30km to race, the leaders had conceded another 25 seconds and it looked like the time for their closeup had come and gone.
Moreau was driving it up front as the bandaged, suffering Soler imploded, shooting backward and out of the GC picture, just as Rubens Bertogliati (Saunier Duval-Scott) stacked it in an oily corner, briefly disrupting the pursuit. The two unfortunates hooked up at the rear and formed a non-laughing group.
Quick Step, meanwhile, came forward to lend a hand for Gert Steegmans, standing in for the troubled Tom Boonen; coincidentally, Steegmans won stage 2 in last year’s Tour. With Quick Step at the helm the leaders’ advantage evaporated to less than a minute with 17km to go.
Ten kilometers from the line the gap was down to 41 seconds as Crédit Agricole moved forward for Thor Hushovd (15th at 0:07). CSC’s Fabian Cancellara (16th at 0:07), a renowned final-kilometer escapee, was sneaking forward, too.
Once more into the breach
With 6km to go the leaders had but 30 seconds over the ravening bunch. Three kilometers later Moreau was taking a monster turn at the front, with Chavanel the caboose to his locomotive. And then Chavanel attacked over the final climb, dogged by Voeckler.
Chavanel snatched up a quick 10-second gap and still had half of it with less than 2km to race. But it wasn’t enough — he was swept up by the chase, and then Cancellara shot away in the final kilometer, racing away as yet another crash disrupted the pursuit.
Cancellara looked to have another successful escape in the bag, but couldn’t hold it. And as the sprinters rocketed forward, banging bars and bumping shoulders with 400 meters to go, Hushovd gave it the gas, rocketing past the big Swiss time machine to snatch the win ahead of Columbia teammates Kim Kirchen and Gerald Ciolek.
"I knew that I could win when I saw the profile of today's stage," Hushovd said. "With the breakaway, it was going really fast because of the tailwind, so it's always hard to control. But on the finish, we knew it would be hard for them to stay away because of the hard climbs in the end."
When Cancellara attacked, Hushovd said, he remained patient. "I said to Mark (Renshaw) with 700m, ‘I'm on your wheel, don't panic.’ I sat on and with 400m, he set up my sprint just perfect. It was great teamwork by the team."
Renshaw, who had tried in vain to pull Hushovd to the finish line on his wheel on Saturday, said he was "still a bit shocked" at his teammate's victory, his sixth Tour triumph.
"Near the end I got caught with a bit of a wave and for a bit I thought Thor had crashed," he said. "Then I heard him behind me and he went with about 400 meters to go, pulling out of the outside of Valverde. On an uphill finish like that nobody's going to beat a sprinter like Thor."
As for the race leader, he was happy at the prospect of spending another day in yellow.
“It was a very hard, fast stage with the escape. The rain and wind and made it even more nervous,” said Valverde. “I'm happy to stay in yellow at the end of the day because it was not easy out there today. Today was more of a day for the sprinters, but I had to be careful to keep in good position if I wanted to keep the yellow jersey.
“It was incredible to be in the yellow jersey today, riding through all the villages with people calling out my name. It was so emotional for me and my team. It gave me a lot of satisfaction."
—European correspondent Andrew Hood and Agence France Presse contributed to this report.
Stage 2 Results
1. Thor Hushovd (NOR), Credit Agricole 164.5 km in 3hr 45min 13sec
2. Kim Kirchen (LUX), Columbia at s.t
3. Gerald Ciolek (GER), Columbia at 0:00
4. Robert Hunter (RSA), Barloworld 0:00
5. Erik Zabel (GER), Milram 0:00
6. Yury Trofimov (RUS), Bouygues Telecom 0:00
7. Oscar Freire (ESP), Rabobank 0:00
8. Jimmy Casper (FRA), Agritubel 0:00
9. Martin Elmiger (SUI), Ag2r Prevoyance 0:00
10. Leonardo Duque (COL), Cofidis 0:00
Overall, after stage 2
1. Alejandro Valverde (ESP), Caisse d'Epargne 8:21:20
2. Kim Kirchen (LUX), Columbia at 0:01
3. Oscar Freire (ESP), Rabobank at 0:01
4. Juan Jose Cobo (ESP), Saunier Duval 0:01
5. Cadel Evans (AUS), Silence-Lotto 0:01
6. Jerome Pineau (FRA), Bouygues Telecom 0:01
7. David Millar (GBR), Garmin-Chipotle 0:01
8. Riccardo Ricco (ITA), Saunier Duval 0:01
9. Frank Schleck (LUX), CSC 0:01
10. Filippo Pozzato (ITA), Liquigas 0:01
