Thursday, July 16, 2009

Stage 12: Tonnerre to Vittel

Kenny Robert Van Hummel makes it a solid 7 days as the Lanterne Rouge today as the main peloton finished in a bunch. A very few stragglers across the line today: Jose Luis Arrieta of Ag2R, Mick Rogers of Columbia (though he was probably delayed by a crash since he was given the time of the main group), and Christophe Riblon of Ag2R.

Placements at the top and the bottom of the General Classification may hit the Mixmaster in the next few days, which promises to be interesting.

We had four losses today, bringing the peloton down to 166 riders: Romain Feillu of Agritubel; Angelo Furlan of Lampre; and Jérôme Coppel of FdJ all withdrew during the stage, while Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa of Caisse d'Epargne did not start the day.

Update: Very nice article today by Daniel Benson in Cyclingnews.com on Kenny Robert Van Hummel.

Labels: , , , , , , ,


This item posted by Nancy Toby @ 1:13 PM  1 comments

Sunday, July 15, 2007

A T-Mobile rider and spectator down

There are reports out now that rider Patrik Sinkewitz of T-Mobile went down after the stage while riding to his hotel from hitting a 78-year-old spectator who is now in a coma. Sinkewitz incurred facial injuries.

I fervently hope the rider's injuries are not another idiotic situation like Paolo Salvoldelli's last year that might have been prevented quite simply by keeping a helmet on after the stage was over. And that Sinkewitz and the spectator both recover quickly (along with the other riders injured today).

This is a severe blow to a team that just lost Cavendish and Rogers in today's stage, although Cavendish's departure was pre-planned.

Update: There is a short article on this now at the T-Mobile team website which says Sinkewitz "will definitely not be able to continue at the Tour de France" due to "a facial fracture (broken nose), head trauma, and a shoulder injury". It does sound like some of those rider injuries may have been prevented or reduced with a helmet, but there is no mention of whether he was wearing one or not at the time. On TV I see many of the riders removing their helmets immediately after the finish line of each stage, but as described here, they often ride their bikes through the extremely crowded streets a fair distance back to their team bus or lodgings. His withdrawal was confirmed by Reuters, which brings the peleton down to no more than 171 riders on Tuesday (from 189 Prologue finishers) and 6 of 9 riders remaining on T-Mobile.

Update: It seems that I was wrong about Sinkewitz not wearing a helmet. There is an AP photo of the crash posted at Spare Cycles where a magenta helmet can be seen. My apologies for making an incorrect assumption and my best wishes to everyone concerned.

Labels: , , ,


This item posted by Nancy Toby @ 6:01 PM  0 comments

Carnage in the Alps

I haven't been able to watch the stage yet, so I actually gasped when I saw the list of today's 8 withdrawals:

146 PARRA Ivan Ramiro (COL) COFIDIS CREDIT PAR TELEPHONE withdrawls
136 HERVE Cédric (FRA) AGRITUBEL outside time limit
134 FEILLU Romain (FRA) AGRITUBEL withdrawls
86 NAPOLITANO Danilo (ITA) LAMPRE-FONDITAL outside time limit
46 MC EWEN Robbie (AUS) PREDICTOR - LOTTO outside time limit
35 O’GRADY Stuart (AUS) TEAM CSC withdrawls
23 CAVENDISH Mark (GBR) T-MOBILE TEAM withdrawls
21 ROGERS Michael (AUS) T-MOBILE TEAM withdrawls

O'Grady crashed and his injuries sound serious: "punctured one lung, broke his collarbone, shoulder blade, five ribs as well as some bones in his spine".

Personally, I hope this day - with O'Grady and McEwen out - improves old Erik Zabel's chances of wearing the green jersey a few more times, particularly on the last day in Paris. I think the decision to strip his green jersey win from 11 years ago is nasty, particularly when other living Tour winners have admitted to taking anabolic steroids while competing. Like, for example, Floyd Landis is accused of doing. But they're French. (Right now Zabel is in 2nd place with 134 points to Tom Boonen's 147 points, and Boonen couldn't finish the Tour in 2005 and 2006).

Our old friend Wim Vansevenant (Lanterne Rouge for the 2006 Tour, Belgian rider for Predictor-Lotto) is our new Lanterne Rouge from this stage. This is his 4th Tour de France. He's already shown that he's capable of surviving the entire 3 weeks of the Tour, and he's made it to the rest day now - maybe he'll make it to the bitter end.

Vansevenant is the seventh man to hold the Lanterne Rouge title in this up-for-grabs Tour, and we're only at the end of Stage 8. However, he's far ahead of five of the previous holders of the title - he's still in the Tour, and they're not. Vansevenant has been earning his paycheck riding in support of his teammate, sprinter Robbie McEwen, although obviously now that tactic will change since McEwen is out of the Tour.

66 riders arrived at the finish line and their well-earned rest day in the huge autobus, all assigned a time of 39:07 after the stage winner. That results in our final five riders in the General Classification as:

168. CHARTEAU Anthony 104 CREDIT AGRICOLE 16:51:19 + 01:13:37
169. HOSTE Leif 45 PREDICTOR - LOTTO 16:51:28 + 01:13:46
170. KUSCHYNSKI Aleksandr 156 LIQUIGAS 16:51:56 + 01:14:14
171. ZABRISKIE David 39 TEAM CSC 16:52:22 + 01:14:40
172. VANSEVENANT Wim 49 PREDICTOR - LOTTO 16:54:56 + 01:17:14

Well, if the Big Z loses a couple more minutes to Vansevenant, we may be able to talk about him as Lanterne Rouge after all. I have a feeling he would just laugh and bide his time until the 54-km individual time trial next Saturday, July 21st. Right now he's doing the job he is paid to do out there.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


This item posted by Nancy Toby @ 1:19 PM  0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?