At Large Largess

By Ashton | Permalink | No Comments | June 23rd, 2007 | Trackback

Many discount the annual Tour de Suisse as a mere warm up race for the Tour de France, but this year’s Suisse has been very entertaining. Heading into today’s eighth stage the top ten leaders all were within 31 seconds of one another, so today’s stage promised plenty of fireworks.

Discovery Team knew they needed to make something happen today if they wanted to take full advantage of Gusev’s stage victory in Stage 7, so they put three riders in the 11 man attack that stayed out in front until very near the end of the race. The peloton rode at a fast pace the entire day but attacks still were launched the length of the stage from both the leading group and the main bunch.

The peloton caught Carlos Sastre, the last of the leaders, back in with about 8 km to go. The attacks continued. First Tonti of Quickstep had a go until Chris Horner passed him. Horner was brought back in with about 11 seconds to go. Volksbank’s Florian Stadler wanted to protect his Sprinter’s jersey and finish near the front. Unibet’s Rigoberto Uran wanted to win the stage. Both achieved their goals for the day.

While bedlam reigned at the front of the pack, Uran swung out from the right side of the group to begin a perfectly timed attack with less than 1000 meters to go. By the time the big boys realized what he had done, Uran had created a gap they could not close. The mad dash to the finish did not catch the Unibet rider and he took the stage by 2 seconds over Christian Moreni and Andreas Kloeden.

The leaders all remain less than a minute apart, so everything depends on Sunday’s time trial. Vladimir Efimkin of Caisse d’Epargne will wear the GC leader’s jersey. Discovery’s Gusev has won the Kink of the Mountains jersey because no points will be awarded for it Sunday. Volksbank’s Stadler remains in the Sprinter’s Jersey. Heading into tomorrow’s finale, the two at large teams have acquitted themselves wonderfully having secured both a stage win and one of the jerseys for the final platform.

The only thing that perhaps could have made this tour more fun might have been the injection of a few more Russian riders. Where is Tinkoff when you really need them?

See you tomorrow. I hope we will have pictures by then.

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