2017 Tour de France: carnage on stage 9 – Uran wins, Froome still in Yellow

As I feared very steep descents on wet roads brought carnage to the Tour yesterday with Geraint Thomas and then Richie Porte the headline riders who crashed out. Other riders out include Robert Gesink (crash), Arnaud Démare along with three team mates, Mark Renshaw, Matteo Trentin and Peter Sagan's brother – Juraj – all were outside the time limit for yesterday's brutal stage.

  

Despite a damaged bike – unable to change gear from the top 11 sprocket with only the option of moving from the big ring to the small, Rigoberto Uran just managed to hold off Warren Bargueil to win the stage – his first ever TdF stage win. Bargueil, who rode very well, has the compensation of being in the climbers' jersey with a healthy 30 point lead plus several days to recover before the next set of mountains. 

Chris Froome came through this tough test showing on the final climb Mont du Chat that he was the strongest climber on the day. The Yellow Jersey overall classification is now clearer with now only three riders – Fabio Aru, Romain Bardet and Rigoberto Uran within a minute of Froome. Nairo Quintana faded on the last climb and is now at 2.13 while Alberto Contador had a terrible time and is now 12th overall at 5.15 down. 

Sprinter Michael Matthews did an amazing ride to get over two HC climbs to pick up maximum points in the Intermediate Sprint. With Démare out – not sure why FDJ sacrificed three team mates to assist the clearly ill and weak Démare – Matthews looks to be Marcel Kittel's only serious challenger for the Green Jersey. However, he is still 52 points behind Kittel with several sprinters' stages still to come. Kittel must be the favourite for Green. 

Today is a very welcome rest day to be followed by a couple of likely sprint stages. 

 

2017 Tour de France: Calmejane wins in Jura. Brutal Stage 9 preview

 Fine first TDF stage win for Lilian Calmejane 

Chris Froome still in Yellow – 

will he still be wearing it after Stage 9?

Yesterday the fine solo victory of 24-year-old Lilian Calmejean added further to the promise already shown by this young French rider. Not only was this his first TDF stage win but he took the climber's mountain polka dot jersey from Fabio Aru. Let's hope that the pressure of being a new hope for French cycling doesn't prove too much of a burden for him.  

Yesterday's stage was easily the most exciting of this year's Tour with the racing fast and furious from the off and it never really settled down. As I suggested yesterday not only was there big competition to get into the break but the sprinters' teams were also keen to contest the intermediate sprint, which was early on in the stage. 

The uncategorized climb out of Arbois found out some of the riders – notably Arnaud Démare and Luke Rowe, the team captain of Sky. 

Eventually a large group of riders got away around 80 kilometres into the stage but Sky managed to control this well. By the finish only Calmejean, who won despite a bout of cramp just five kilometres from the finish, and Robert Gesink were ahead of the still substantial peloton. None of the overall contenders made any serious attack, perhaps wanting to wait for today's very tough stage. 

Stage 9: Nantua to Chambéry 181.5 kms

 Today's ferocious profile with three HC climbs

 First two HC climbs 

 Mont du Chat

Today's stage with its three HC climbs is certainly very tough. Let's hope that the racing lives up to expectation. It could go either way: the contenders look at attack Sky and Chris Froome or it becomes a procession with contenders fearful to take the risk, especially as thundery showers are forecast for today.  

We could see big changes to the overall order tonight. Will Froome still be in Yellow or will it be Fabio Aru or Richie Porte or Dan Martin. How will Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador fare?

As this stage starts with an immediate climb up the Cat 2 Côte des Neyrolles and if I was one of Froome's rivals I would look to attack right from the start and hope to repeat what happened in Stage 15 of the 2016 Vuelta when Froome was isolated on a similar start.   

2017 Tour de France: Stage 1 TT Düsseldorf

The 2017 Tour de France starts in Düsseldorf with a 14 kilometre time trial. The course is very largely flat with the few climbs essentially from going over two bridges over the Rhine. It is an ideal course for a strong, powerful time trial specialist like Tony Martin and probably not ideal for lightweight climbers. At 14K it could long enough for some of the favourites to lose time, although not enough time to count by the time the Tour reaches Paris on 23rd July.

Given today's forecast for heavy rain at times it is fortunate that there a few corners on this course and some long straights. Even so rain will make this short TT more of a lottery both from the increased possibility of crashes and if some riders race in the rain, while others ride in the dry.

The forecasters are not in agreement over when it will be raining or how hard. The BBC has opted for heavy rain for much of the day except around 2pm when the rain is expected to be lighter. The forecast on the official Tour website is for scattered light showers. Other forecasts have heavy rain in the morning tailing off to some light rain in the afternoon. 

If it is very wet I would expect the Yellow Jersey contenders to ride more cautiously, so as to avoid crashing as a few seconds lost here is much better than a bad crash. 

Let's hope that after all the build up the forecasts are confounded and that it is dry in Düsseldorf this afternoon. 

Contenders for the stage 
Many would love to see Tony Martin win today and certainly he is probably the favourite but not by a big margin. Other contenders include Richie Porte, although if it is wet Richie may be reluctant to go full gas, Jonathan Castroviejo, Primoz Roglic and possibly Steve Cummings who is the UK's 2017 Time Trial Champion.

Elie Gesbert is the first rider off at 15.15 CET. Riders start at one minute intervals with Chris Froome, as defending champion last of the 198 competitors off at 18.32. Tony Martin's start time is 18.20.     

The first rider is off at 15.15      

2017 Le Tour de France starts tomorrow in Düsseldorf

 The route of the 2017 Tour de France 

Starting on 1st July in Düsseldorf 

and finishing in Paris on 23rd July

Stage 1: 14km individual TT 

It's that magical three weeks of the year again – the Tour de France starts tomorrow with a 14 kilometre flat time trial in the centre of Düsseldorf. At 14 kilometres it is a least twice the distance of most prologues and long enough to create some gaps between the favourites for the Yellow Jersey.

The Tour is often not as exciting as the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta but even so as the biggest bike race and sporting event in the world it has its own magic.

Overall
Yellow
Will Chris Froome win his 4th Tour? He is yet to win a race this year and his time trial in the Dauphine was disappointing. However, form in the Dauphine isn't always real indicator to how riders perform in the Tour. If Froome is back to his best he might get a flying start from tomorrow's TT, at least over Nairo Quintana and Romain Bardet but unlikely to gain time over Alberto Contador or Richie Porte. 

Froome's rivals include Romain Bardet, who was second last year. Bardet will look to win this year but will the curse of French expectations in not having a Tour winner since Bernard Hinault won the 1985 edition. Richie Porte is strongly fancied this year after winning the Tour Down Under and the Tour of Romandie. However, he lost the Dauphine on the last day when he was left isolated by his team, although he fought hard to have his first place just losing out to Jakob Fulsang, who could be a contender if he can hold his form. Also Porte has yet to really perform over the full three weeks of a Grand Tour but this year could be different. And what of Fabio Aru, Fulsang's team mate? At 28 he should be in his prime and he was very impressive when he won last Sunday's Italian Road Race Championship.

Nairo Quintana nearly won this year's Giro d'Italia losing to Tom Dumoulin in the TT on the last day. We will have to see if he has fully recovered from the Giro. With only 34 kms of TTs this year he should not be in danger of losing important time on his rivals but that has to be set against there only being three mountain top finishes. Alberto Contador had the bad luck to crash on the opening stage last year. Although, he can be counted on making the racing exciting does Contador, at 34, have the form to win the Tour once again.  

Could it all come down to the final time trial on 22nd July in Marseille which includes the sharp steep climb up to Notre Dame de la Garde?    

Green 
Peter Sagan. 

Stage 1 contenders   
Will look at this in a post tomorrow.  

2016 Tour de France: Chris Froome tightens grip – uphill TT today

Ilnur Zaharin won yesterday's steep climb to Finaut-Emosson to take his first Tour de France stage, while Rafa Majka strengthened his position in the Polka Dot jersey. Majka has 173 points to Thomas de Gendt on 90 and Zaharin on 78. As usual Peter Sagan got into the break to snaffle maximum points from the intermediate sprint and then did a club run ride to the finish. Sagan has 425 points to Marcel Kittel's 228, so Green is his unless he crashes out.      

In the last kilometre Chris Froome gained time on all of his GC rivals apart from Richie Porte when Richie attacked. Of Chris' closest rivals the biggest losers were Nairo Quintana (28 seconds) and Bauke Mollema (40 seconds).  Alejandro Valverde and Dan Martin, who made an unsuccessful attack on the final climb, also lost significant time. Adam Yates put in another fine performance coming in just 8 seconds after Froome and Porte.

Once again the Sky train proved to be utterly dominant, although Astana did take to the front for a while with Vincenzo Nibali and Diego Rosa. Was the plan for Fabio Aru to attack? If it was nothing happened apart from first Nibali and then Rosa burning themselves out. 

Once again Tejay Van Garderen showed that he doesn't last the three weeks of the Tour when he blew up on the penultimate climb and lost nearly 20 minutes to Froome. This leaves Porte as the undisputed BMC leader.  

 

Stage 18: Sallanches to Megève – 17 km mountain time trial 

Today's mountain time trial is a tribute to Bernard Hinault's World Championship win here in 1980. I expect that Chris Froome will put further time into his GC rivals. It is now going to take a real disaster to stop Froome winning his third TDF. He deserves to win as to date he has shown himself to be the dominant rider. 

2014 Tour de France: France celebrates as Blel Kadri wins@Gérardmer

Blel Kadri took a fine solo victory in foul conditions this afternoon at the top of Gérardmer La Mauselaine. He was the sole survivor of a five-man break, who at one point had a lead of over 11 minutes on the peloton. That gap shrank rapidly, however, under relentless pressure applied by the Saxo-Tinkoff team on behalf of Alberto Contador. Vincenzo Nibali managed to shadow Alberto almost right to the line but dropped three seconds on him within sight of the finish.

This is Kadri's first Tour de France stage win – see list of stage winners from 1903 to 2014.

The French will be delighted to have gained one stage win but will still be looking for glory on Monday 14th July – Bastille Day. Furthermore Kadri now has the King of the Mountains Jersey with his teammate Romain Bardet closing on Michel Kwiatowski for the best White Jersey (Best Young Rider). France's Thibault Pinot also did a good ride today finishing fifth just behind Porte.      

As expected Stage 8 has shaken up the Overall Classification, although Vincenzo Nibali retains a comfortable lead over his rivals. Contador has moved into sixth place as riders like Peter Sagan, Fabian Cancellara and Tony Gallopin have dropped out of contention, although Peter retains a lead of over 110 in the Green Jersey. Richie Porte has moved up from 7th to 3rd with a fine performance finishing just just behind Contador and Nibali. Jurgen van den Broek has slipped from 5th to 10th, while Valverde and Rui Costa have moved up. Andrew Talansky had a crash towards the end of the stage and is now down in 16th place 4:22 down on Nibali.

Nibali may be concerned that his Astana team had melted away long below Contador's had. If this continues Nibali's isolation could be a factor in the high mountains.

Good to see aggressive racing from the favourites and hope that tomorrow's stage will be similarly competitive even though the last categorised climb – Le Grand Ballon is over 40 kms from the finish. Much of that 40 kilometres is the descent of the peak with only some eight kilometres right towards the finish really flat.    

#TDF13: Marcel Kittel wins on the Champs Elysées – Chris Froome takes Tour's 100th edition

Mark Cavendish's four year run of stage victories on the Champs Elysées came to an end yesterday when Marcel Kittel was first over the line to take his tally of stage wins in this Tour to an impressive four. André Griepel was second with Cav third.

Whether this Tour has seen the title of sprint king move from Cav to Kittel remains to be seen. Kittel is clearly very fast and a fine sprinter. Certainly with just two stages wins this Tour is Cav's least successful since his debut in the Tour in 2007. I suspect that the very tough Giro, which Cav rode and won the Red Jersey, took its toll. He has seemed to lack that extra but of zip – the second kick of his. Neither Griepel and Kittel rode the Giro. Look what the Giro did for Cadel Evans' chances in the Tour! 

In three out of four of Cav's victories on the Champs he was second through the final corner behind his lead out rider. This time he was behind both Kittel and Griepel and having to chase Kittel. The expected arrival of Mark Renshaw to join the Omega Pharma Quickstep team should help to sort out the lead out team, whose performance has been erratic. 

At 28 Cav is around his peak and sprinters can keep this peak for many years. Griepel is 31 and has kept his form throughout this Tour whereas last year he faded in the last week.

Chris Froome duly won the Tour yesterday having been the dominant rider throughout the race. He will be tough to beat next year despite the emergence of young riders like Nairo Quintana and Richie Porte. The best days of Alberto Contador would appear to be over – only in the mountain time trial and the windy stage to Saint Amand Montrond did we see flashes of the old Alberto.

Perhaps the most significant news is that so far there have been, as far as I know, no positive drugs tests, during this 100th edition of the Tour. Fingers crossed!    

  

#TDF13: Froome's triumph on Ventoux prompts doubts

Mont Ventoux from a vineyard in Rasteau

Chris Froome produced a great ride on Ventoux yesterday to win the stage and pulverise his rivals. He is the first holder of the Yellow jersey to win on Ventoux since Eddy Merckx in 1970. Sky, in particular Peter Kennaugh and Richie Porte, did a great job in thinning the peloton down to just Alberto Contador by the time there was 7 kilometres to go. At this point Porte peeled off and Froome attacked Contador pedalling at a very high cadence but remaining sitting in the saddle – often riders stand on the pedals to launch an attack. Contador rapidly fell away unable to match Froome's speed. 

Nairo Quintana had previously attacked (12K from top) and built up a maximum advantage of some 40 seconds, which Porte's acceleration pulled back to no more than 10/15. Froome quickly caught Quintana a little before Chalet Reynaud. They stayed together despite several attacks by Froome until within two kilometres of the summit and just by the Tommy Simpson Memorial, when Quintana cracked. On the finishing line Froome had 29 seconds on Quintana and much bigger chunks on the rest of his rivals – Mikel Nieve and Joaquim Rodriguez (1.23 min), Romain Kreuziger and Alberto Contador (1.40), Jakob Fulsang (1.43), Bauke Mollema (1.46), Laurens ten Dam (1.53), Jean-Christophe Peraud (2.08) and Alejandro Valverde (2.32).

Earlier Froome had benefitted from long stints by Europcar and Movistar on the front of the peloton to limit the gains of the breakaway. 

Yesterday's victory takes Froome's TDF stage wins to three. 

Perhaps because they failed to properly investigate Lance Armstrong, some of the Press has been keen to express doubts over Froome and Sky's claims that their riders are clean. There have also been many comments on Twitter.

All this is suspicion. There is no evidence that Chris Froome is not clean: he hasn't tested positive and the biological passport makes doping more difficult than it did even in Armstrong's time. I'm not surprised he dropped Contador, who is not the same rider as he was in 2009. Alberto has lost his thrilling acceleration on the climbs, had a horrible time on the climb to Ax 3 Domaines and clearly blew just before the end of the Ventoux climb yesterday. Quintana, who is only 23, may well have made his effort too early, so was unable to match Froome at the end of the climb. Also in last year's Tour it was pretty clear that Froome could out climb everyone else including Nibali and had to be restrained by Sky from tearing off up several mountains. 

Until I have good reason to doubt I'm ready to accept David Brailsford, Froome and Sky's explanation that Chris' performance is down to the training programme that harnesses his natural ability. After all Brailsford transformed UK track cycling. It is very sad but not surprising that the recent history of doping with Armstrong and many others along with the failure of leadership by the UCI has tarred cycling. This hasn't, however, stopped many thousands from coming out to watch Le Tour.  

Overall standings after Stage 15    

  

 1. Chris Froome                       61.11.43
 2. Bauke Mollema                        4.14

 3. Alberto Contador                     4.25

 4. Roman Kreuziger                     2.28

 5. Laurens Ten Dam                    4.54 
 6. Nairo Quintana                        5.18 (White Jersey for best young rider)
 7. Jacob Fuglsang                        6.22

 8. Joaquin Rodriguez                    7.11

 9. Jean-Christophe Peraud            7.47 (the leading French rider)

10. Michal Kwiatkowski                  7.58 

11. Daniel Martin                          8.28

12. Michael Rogers                        9.54
13. Andrew Talansky                    12.32

14. Maxime Monfort                     13.47

15. Alejandro Valverde                 14.42

16. Cadel Evans                          15.40
17. Mikel Nieve                           18.12
18. Andy Schleck                        19.14

19. Daniel Moreno                       21.42

20. Daniel Navarro                      23.36

   

  

  

     

#TDF13: Stage 9 – Froome holds on but Sky blow up!

After a really hard day in the Pyrénees Christopher Froome has held on to the Yellow Jersey and his time advantage. However, Froome had to do it without any assistance from his team who had a bad day with Richie Porte coming in at 17.59 on the day's fine stage winner Daniel Martin and tumbling down from 2nd place to 33rd at 18.30 behind his leader Chris Froome. Alejandro Valverde has moved up into second place. 

Froome was attacked on several occasions on the final climb of the day mainly by Quintana but he neutralised all the attacks.      

 

The Tour now moves to Brittany for the first rest day. The next likely GC day will be on Wednesday with the individual time trial. This should be a chance for Froome to put further time into his rivals. Before that there will be a chance for the sprinters in the run to Saint Malo on Tuesday.     

Standings after Stage 8

1. Chris Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling

2. Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team @ 1’25”

3. Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’44”

4. Laurens ten Dam (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’50”

5. Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 1’51”

6. Alberto Contador (Spa) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 1'51"

7. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team @ 2’02”

8. Daniel Martin (Ire) Garmin-Sharp 2.28

9. Joaquim Rodríguez (Spa) Katusha Team @ 2’31” 

10. Rui da Costa (Movistar) 2.45 
11. Mikel Nieve (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 2.55

12. Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana 3.07

13. Michal Kwiatowski (Pol) 3.25
14. Jean-Christophe Péraud  (AG2R) 3.29

15. Andy Schleck (Radioshack) 4.00 
16. Cadel Evans (BMC) 4.10  

Daniel Martin, with his first Tour stage win, now joins the list of all time stage winners.

#TDF13: Chris Froome and Sky blow Tour apart

2010: Decorated bike shop in Pauillac

Chris Froome, Richie Ports and Team Sky took control of the 2013 Tour de France today on the stage to Ax-3-Domaines. In my previous post I speculated as to whether this first mountain stage would prove to be decisive and just be limited to some early sparring.

Little did I guess that it would be as dramatic as it was with such significant time gaps to Froome and Porte's rivals. Froome as he has demonstrated this year as well as giving hints last year likes to attack. The attacks are well calculated but he is prepared to go for it rather than taking the safety first option.

Although it eventually was snuffed out it was good to see Quintana attack well out from the finish, which made the race exciting. Sometimes these sort of attacks come off. Certainly if Froome's rivals are to claw back today's time losses them they will have to take risks like Quintana. 

ITV4 managed to put in a long advert break just at the crucial moments of the race on the last climb, so missed Porte bringing the greatly diminished leaders up to Quintana and then Froome's attack. Will have to take out a subscription to Eurosport!

Top Stage Placings and Top 10 Overall and other placings

Result Stage 8

1. Chris Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling

2. Richie Porte (GBr) Sky Procycling @ 51s

3. Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team @ 1’08”

4. Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’10”

5. Laurens ten Dam (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’16”

6. Mikel Nieve (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi @ 1’34”

7. Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 1’45”

8. Alberto Contador (Spa) Team Saxo-Tinkoff

9. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team

10. Igor Antón (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi
11. Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) 2.06
12. Rui Faria da Costa (Movistar) 2.28
13. Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R) 2.28
14. Romain Bardet (AG2R) 2.34
15. Daniel Martin (Garmin Sharp) 2.34
16. Andrew Talansky (Garmin Sharp) 2.34
17. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) 2.34
18. Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff) 2.34
19. Haimar Zubeldia (Radioshack) 3.04
20. Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick-Step) 3.27
21. Andy Schleck (Radioshack) 3.34
22. Pierre Rolland (Europcar) 3.47
23. Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff) 4.04
24. John Gadret (AG2R) 4.08
25. Daniel Moreno (Katusha) 4.11
26. Cadel Evans (BMC) 4.13
35. Daryl Impey (Orica Greenedge) 7.50
38. Jan Bakelants (Radioshack) 7.50
39. Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) 8.15
 
Others:

Standings after Stage 8

1. Chris Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling

2. Richie Porte (GBr) Sky Procycling @ 51s

3. Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team @ 1’25”

4. Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’44”

5. Laurens ten Dam (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling @ 1’50”

6. Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 1’51”

7. Alberto Contador (Spa) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 1'51"

8. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team @ 2’02”

9. Joaquim Rodríguez (Spa) Katusha Team @ 2’31”

10. Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff @ 2’40”
11. Rui da Costa (Movistar) 2.45
12. Andrew Talansky (Garmin) 2.48
13. Daniel Martin (Garmin) 2.48
14. Mikel Nieve (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 2.55
15. Igor Anton Hernandez (Euskaltel) 3.06
20. Romain Bardet (AG2R)
21. Andy Schleck (Radioshack) 4.00 
23. Cadel Evans (BMC) 4.10
25. Pierre Rolland (Europcar) 4.57
29. Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) 6.39 

Chris Froome and Richie Porte have certainly stamped their authority on the race assisted by great work from Vasil Kiryienka and Peter Kennaugh. In contrast Alberto Contador had a dreadful time on the last climb and showed again, as he had in the Dauphine, that he is not the rider he was. Unless he gets back some time today Alberto is likely to be more than three minutes or more behind Froome after the time trial on Wednesday. Fortunately for Contador it is only 33K long but in the Dauphine he lost nearly two minutes to Froome in the 32.5TT. 

Alejandro Valverde, currently the most credible challenger to Froome, is also likley to lose significant time to Froome in the time trial as he also lost nearly two minutes to him in the same Dauphine TT.

Cadel Evans' chance of a podium place must have gone. It looks like asking Cadel at 36 to ride both the Giro and the Tour is too much. It is difficult to believe that he will again be a serious contender for a Grand Tour. 

Good rides from Laurens ten Dam and Bauke Mollema. Daryl Impey put up a brave defence of his Yellow Jersey coming in at 7.50 along with Jan Bakelants.     

Given the Lance Armstrong revelations and confession allied with the other doping scandals, some are inevitably comparing Froome, Port and Team Sky to Armstrong and the US Postal Team. Froome has made it clear that he is clean and that their success is down to training and hard work. He says that his wins will not be taken away from him in the future. I think and hope that riders like Chris Froome, Mark Cavendsish etc. are telling the truth that they are riding clean. If they are not they could carry huge responsibility for I suspect that professional cycling would not now survive another wideranging major doping scandal.

This is not to say that there won't be some positive dope results this year as there were in the Giro d'Italia but with only minor riders being busted. The leading riders now have to ride clean otherwise events like Le Tour could be finished.    

Today's stage
This will be another very tough day in the mountains (169K) with five climbs – one Category 2 and four 1st category. With 31K from the top of the last climb to the finish the stage's dynamic is likely to be different. Will any of the GC 'contenders' try to break Sky or will a break with riders with no overall threat be allowed to succeed?