Blagnac / Brive-la-Gaillarde (138.25 miles)
Le. Tour. De. France.
Yesterday BruceMcF analyzed the 2012, 99th Edition of Le Tour this way-
Hopes that Cadel was having a bad recovery from the rest day faded when I heard him refer to seeing how his “health” recovers. Word was he had a “parasite” he was diagnosed with two hours before the race on Wednesday’s stage. Oh, joy! No wonder he lost big time ~ the wonder is he didn’t drop out of the top ten altogether.
The problem with the Yellow Jersey competition is that the race was designed for a four way show-down between Evans, Wiggins, Andy Schleck, and Alberto Contador, and then Contador was found guilty of doping, Schleck was knocked out by injury, and it seems like Global Warming conspired to do Evans in ~ he’s not got a reputation for coping well with the very hot conditions, and this was one hot run through the Alps they had in week two. If he was fighting at his limit just to hang on, catching some bug on the rest day is no surprise.
What made today’s stage was the King of the Mountains competition ~ Voeckler vs Kessiakoff was a fine fight.
As far as the Mountain stages, its not how long they are, its how long the top contenders put each other under pressure. If you add one more HC to the front of yesterday’s stage ~ the Queen State ~ it wouldn’t add any more racing. Indeed, by wearing down teams other than Sky, it could easily have led to less. Without Schleck and Contador in the peleton, then the two remaining serious climbing contenders, Evans and Nibali, are more pace-climbing riders than attacking climbers.
Some commentators on PodiumCafe question the design of the course for some of the stages. But I can see places on each of the stage where earlier attacks could have been made ~ had someone had the GC contender and the supporting team to launch the attack and then back it up.
In the end, the riders make the race, and the two best GC riders in the race this year were riding on the same team. Move Froome to BMC or Liquigas, and run it again, and the same course would see fireworks, and we would have Froome going into the final time trial leading by a minute or more, but Wiggins making up time in the time trial, just as Evans did rising as second last in the time trial last year, except with an excellent time trialer riding last defending his yellow jersey, instead of Andy Schleck.
Riders that did not appear in Stage 17 were Vladimir Gusev and Grega Bole. Frank Schleck withdrew after testing positive for the diuretic Xipamide.
Today’s stage is labeled ‘Plains’ and has a category 3 and three category 4 climbs. Points will be awarded in Hill Climbing but probably not enough to make any difference. The Award point is in the middle of a category 4 climb 2.5 km from the top, so that could be interesting.
Tomorrow is the 3rd Individual Time Trial, the final day anything much will change (by custom) except amongst the Sprinters. Sunday we finish Le Tour on the Champs-Élysées.
General Classification
Place | Rider | Team | Time/Delta |
1 | WIGGINS Bradley | SKY PROCYCLING | 78h 28:02 |
2 | FROOME Christopher | SKY PROCYCLING | +02:05 |
3 | NIBALI Vincenzo | LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE | +02:41 |
4 | VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen | LOTTO-BELISOL TEAM | +05:53 |
5 | VAN GARDEREN Tejay | BMC RACING TEAM | +08:30 |
6 | EVANS Cadel | BMC RACING TEAM | +09:57 |
7 | ZUBELDIA Haimar | RADIOSHACK-NISSAN | +10:11 |
8 | ROLLAND Pierre | TEAM EUROPCAR | +10:17 |
9 | BRAJKOVIC Janez | ASTANA PRO TEAM | +11:00 |
10 | PINOT Thibaut | FDJ-BIGMAT | +11:46 |
Coverage is customarily on Vs. (NBC Sports) starting at 7:30 am with repeats at noon, 2:30 pm, 8 pm, and midnight. There will be some streaming evidently, but not all of it is free.
Sites of Interest-
- 2012 Le Tour
- Blagnac / Brive-la-Gaillarde (138.25 miles)
- Wikipedia
- Geek Guide (very basic)
- Guardian Interactive Guide
The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-
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Stage 18 Towns: Blagnac – Brive-la- Gaillarde
Blagnac
Blagnac is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. It is the third-largest suburb of the city of Toulouse.
A bit of CT meets Le Tour, you just can’t make this stuff up:
Brive-la- Gaillarde
Even though the inhabitants settled around the 1st century, the city only started to grow much later. Starting around the 5th century, the original city starts to develop around a church dedicated to Saint-Martin-l’Espagnol. During the 12th century walls are built around the city and during the Hundred Years’ War a second wall is built. These fortifications no longer exist and are now replaced by boulevards.
The commune was named “Brive” until 1919, when it was renamed “Brive-la-Gaillarde”. The word “Gaillarde” (still used in current French) probably stands for bravery or strength in the city’s name, but it can also refer to the city’s walls. Brive now extends outside of its original boundaries into Malemort and Ussac.
During World War II, Brive-la-Gaillarde was a regional capital of the Resistance, acting as a seat of several clandestine information networks and several of the principal resistance movements, including the Armée secrète (or “Secret Army”) and the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (or “United Movements of the Resistance”).
Brive-la-Gaillarde was the first city of Occupied France to liberate itself by its own means, on 15 August 1944. For this, the city received the “Croix de guerre 1939-1945” military decoration.
The medieval centre is mainly a commercial district with retail shops and various cafés. It is also the location of the city hall, the main police station, and the Labenche museum. One notable landmark outside the inner city is the Pont Cardinal, a bridge which used to be a crossing point for travelers from Paris to Toulouse.
Was that a long solo sprint for the line or what?
The last time the Yellow Jersey could be seen in the leadout train for his team’s sprinter would be well before the Tour de France was shown on US television.
We saw today what happens when a breakaway starts racing tactically too early before the finishing line, when the Peleton is taking a serious interest in the chase: they get caught. It might be a few hundred meters from the finish, but the last of the break were just road furniture for the sprinters ~ not just Mark Cavendish, but also Matty Goss, as well as Peter Sagan. Sagan clinched his Green Jersey today so long as he finishes the race in Paris (though he will of course go for the win on the Champs Elysee), since his lead in the Green Jersey competition is now more than the Green Jersey points available over the last two days.
Time trial tomorrow, so we would normally expect Cancellara to set the early pace and then see it challenged or passed by one of the last ten riders … but Cancellara withdrew to be with his newborn before the Olympics. With the top two time-trialers in Stage 9 top two in the race, that makes lots of “highly unlikely to change” stories in the last team time trial, making it likely to be both the ante climax stage and the anti-climax stage. Tejay in 5th gained 2’03’ on Van Den Broek in Stage 9, he needs
2’38” to reach 4th. Cadel in 6th gained 1’26”, needs4’04” to reach 4th. So the contest between Tejay and Van Den Broeck over 4th place is likely to be the most interesting thing to watch.