Paris-Nice: Two victory salutes today, but only one winner

By Jessica | Permalink |

No Comments | March 14th, 2007 | Trackback

CSC’s Alexandr Kolobnev wasn’t satisfied with being in an all-day four-man break. When the gap to the peloton was coming down quickly, he jumped away from his three breakaway compatriots and managed to get clear. Not only that, he managed to keep his lead long enough to grab the biggest win in his career, finishing 12 seconds ahead of the group.

Problem is, at least one man in the peloton didn’t know Kolobnev existed. I can see how Tom Boonen got confused… He wasn’t at the front all day, and probably just knew there’d been a break off the front - which he probably also knew had been caught. The coverage also showed that the finishing kilometer, although straight, had a little kick at the end - and there were cars and motorbikes between Kolobnev and the peloton, so they probably didn’t even see the stage winner. What clearly hadn’t gotten communicated to Boonen earlier on was that there was still one guy out there, and he’d just won the stage.

So, what do you do when you’re racing for second place, only you think you’re racing for the win? Why, you throw your hands up in a victory salute even though the winner already crossed the line 12 seconds ago, that’s what. It’s a good thing Boonen’s got a good sense of humor - I imagine we’ll be hearing some self-depracating words from him at some point. Poor guy… Seems that should have been preventable. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of asshole who’d be saluting a second place, for pete’s sake.

Anyway, the top ten on the day were:
1. Alexandr Kolobnev (Rus), CSC
2. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, at 0:12
3. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre, same time
4. Mathew Hayman (Aus), Rabobank, s.t.
5. Jean-Patrick Nazon (F), Ag2r Prevoyance, s.t.
6. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas, s.t.
7. Mirco Lorenzetto (I), Milram, s.t.
8. Mikel Gaztanaga (Sp), Agritubel, s.t.
9. Josep Jufre Pou (Sp), Predictor-Lotto, s.t.
10. Romain Feillu (F), Agritubel, s.t.

And the overall now looks like this:
1. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas
2. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre, at 0:02
3. David Millar (GB), Saunier Duval, at 0:06
4. Roman Kreuzinger (Cz), Liquigas, at 0:07
5. Sébastien Joly (F), Francaise des Jeux, at 0:08
6. Luis Leon Sanchez (Sp), Caisse d’Epargne, s.t.
7. Francisco Ventoso (Sp), Saunier Duval, at 0:10
8. Thomas Voeckler (F), Bouygues Telecom, at 0:11
9. Joost Posthuma (Nl), Rabobank, s.t.
10. Murilo Antonio Fischer (Bra), Liquigas, at 0:13

Pellizotti maintains his lead, but Bennati leapfrogs into second with his third place finish today. Stéphane Augé lost his polka dot attire, however, to Heinrich Haussler of Team Gerolsteiner, who took all of today’s mountain points from the breakaway group. Tomorrow’s mountain finish should be interesting. Any predictions?

Here’s the CyclingNews coverage from today.

Photo by AFP

UPDATE: Here’s a shot of Boonen’s 2nd-place victory salute. And his words:

“The sprint was so intense we lost track of the riders. We caught three of them and when I heard the gap was 20 seconds with 7km to go, normally you think we would catch him,” said Boonen, who did win the bunch sprint, just not the stage. “We didn’t go less than 80kph in the final seven kilometers. He was impressive.”