Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Stage 5: Le Cap d'Agde to Perpignan

Once again this year, the organizers of the Tour don't seem to be posting medical reports at all. Occasionally they've been posted or reported by the various news organizations attending the race. It's the type of thing that's probably handed out on paper at the on-site press centers, but that unfortunately don't seem to make it directly online in any sort of timely manner.

No change in the Lanterne Rouge of the Tour de France. At the end of today's stage there were still officially 178 riders in the race, and the last-ranked in the general classification was Alan Perez Lezaun of Eskaltel-Euskadi at 22:10 behind the wearer of the maillot jaune.

Robert Gesink of Rabobank crashed today at 120 kilometers into the 196.5-km stage. He broke his wrist and was unable to hold the handlebars, and so will officially be a Did Not Start tomorrow morning for Stage 6. That's a pretty darned tough way to ride 47.5 miles at the speed of the Tour de France! At the end of today's stage he arrived at 9:35 after the stage winner accompanied by his teammate Grischa Niermann of Germany. That type of dedicated service to a fellow rider is one way riders lose big chunks of time and end up in the bottom part of the general classification.

Oh yeah, also our Boy from Belarus and previous Lanterne Rouge, national champion Yauheni Hutarovich, was in a breakaway that was away for the entire stage and from which one of the breakaway riders eventually was responsible for winning it - but Hutarovich was swallowed up by the peloton before the finish line (officially 91st over the line). I imagined that the entire nation of Belarus was going absolutely friggin' insane in front of their TVs for every minute of the stage.

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Comments:
Preview: Tour de France: Stage 12. by: Gerald Weinand. Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 00:00:00 AM EDT. With ten stages to go counting this 12th one, the race is now past the halfway point. Of course, the ride through the Alps awaits, but for now, ...
More here:Tour de France: Stage 12-video
 
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