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Look for more hills, more fans and another frenetic finish
It’s not a coincidence that the front-page photo chosen for Saturday’s edition of L’Équipe, the top-selling French sports newspaper, was a shot from the rear of the Tour de France peloton climbing the Mur de Bretagne, a 10-percent-grade, wall-like climb that marks the midpoint of stage 2. The shot is from the 2004 Tour de France, the last time the race came this way, but it will look much the same on Sunday. The French tricolor and four huge black-and-white “Free Brittany” flags arch over the helmeted heads of the Tour men, but the most interesting things in the photo are the faces of the fans on the roadside, especially a white-bearded man shouting out his encouragement to the riders, a teenage boy raising his left arm in an unseen gesture of homage to the Tour, and a young girl wearing blonde bangs and a pink raincoat excitedly clapping her hands together as she sits on her father’s shoulders.
The picture could be titled: “The Tour is alive and well, and back in Brittany!” Despite the persistent media stories predicting the race’s imminent demise based on doping scandals that have dogged big-name racers in recent years, there has been little change in the fans’ enthusiasm for the Tour. Based on the crowds we saw on Saturday’s opening stage across France’s western-most region, the Brittany throngs will again be out in force on Sunday and Monday, anxious to pick out their favorite riders.
One of the newer stars, at least for the French fans, is Alejandro Valverde, who will be easy to spot in his brand-new yellow jersey after he scored a brilliant solo stage win on the uphill finish at Plumelec. Even though Valverde is riding his fourth Tour, the French public barely knows him. A knee injury, and then a broken collarbone stopped him finishing his first two Tours, while he made no impact on last year’s race, despite placing sixth overall. But now he is the center of attention, especially after his victory two weeks ago in the Dauphiné over Cadel Evans — whose impressive sixth place on Saturday confirmed that he too is more than ready for the three-week battle ahead.
Coming only five days before this Tour’s first “real” summit finish at Super-Besse, Saturday’s finale gave us an insight into how the race could pan out. In the group of 12 riders that finished one second behind Valverde, there were four of our overall favorites: Evans, Kim Kirchen (Columbia), Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott) and Fränk Schleck (CSC-Saxo Bank). Six more of our picks were in the next group of 34 just seven seconds back: Carlos Sastre and Andy Schleck (CSC-Saxo Bank), Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Stijn Devolder (Quick Step).
In other words, 11 of our picks (and their teams) are in good shape and look ready to make their presence felt on the overall standings at the next major rendezvous, this coming Tuesday’s individual time trial at Cholet. The one rider missing from the front ranks is Barloworld’s Mauricio Soler, who crashed with 9km to go Saturday just as five Silence-Lotto riders (making sure that Evans stayed ahead of any trouble) led the pack at more than 50 kph through the narrow back roads that preceded the final 1.7km climb to the finish. As he fell, Soler’s arm went through one of teammate’s wheels.
After at least a minute’s delay checking out his injuries and his damaged bike, Soler had no chance of catching the field — which had split into half a dozen groups — and he crossed the line 3:04 after Valverde. Because of severe swelling on his left arm, radiologists could not determine Saturday night whether the tall Colombian had broken his wrist. His Barloworld team is hoping that last year’s King of the Mountains can start Sunday and be recovered enough for the tough stages in the Pyrenees next weekend.
Should Soler be able to continue in the race, he will have a hard time getting up steep climbs like the Mur de Bretagne (the “Wall of Brittany”). This infamous hill is most remembered for its devastating effect on the 1947 Tour’s race leader René Vietto. Going into stage 19 from Vannes to St. Brieuc, with only two days of the race remaining, the popular French rider had a commanding 1:34 lead over Italian Pierre Brambilla. But this stage taking in the Mur de Bretagne was a 139km time trial, and Vietto cracked on the merciless climb. He conceded more than six minutes and the yellow jersey to Brambilla.
Sunday’s stage 2 from Auray to St. Brieuc isn’t a time trial, but the hills and valleys of central and northern Brittany haven’t changed a lot in 60 years. There aren’t many stretches of flat road on this short, tortuous course. The finale is particularly difficult as it loops down to the English Channel and then heads back into the prevailing west wind and climbs a 2km-long hill into St. Brieuc. It was when descending this winding hill during a rainstorm in the 1995 Tour’s prologue that stage favorite Chris Boardman crashed spectacularly into the barriers and sustained a double fracture of the ankle.
After this climb, Sunday’s course has a couple more downs and ups in the final 2km to finish where Filippo Pozzato won a stage on his Tour debut four years ago. Look for the Italian to try a repeat. His Liquigas team worked hard on stage 1 to get him into position for the final climbs. That finish didn’t quite suit his talents and he finished eighth; expect him to be ready to ward off challenges from some of Saturday’s other protagonists, most notably Kim Kirchen, Fränk Schleck and Rabobank’s Oscar Freire.
