Tour de France: Thank Goodness for Rest Days

By Jessica | Permalink | 4 comments | July 15th, 2007 | Trackback

With the excitement of the last few days in the Tour, I’m going to need tomorrow’s rest day almost as much as the riders will. Oh, relax - I said almost.

First, a few days ago we had the inexplicable crash of Alexandre Vinokourov, arguably the race favorite, which looked like it might keep him from even starting the following day. He did start, albeit bandaged from head to toe (so much so that Phil and Paul kept calling him “The Mummy”), and actually looked okay. He looked even better yesterday, and looked damned good today until the final kick on the last mountain saw him shoot out the back of the pack with only his faithful marshal Andreas Kloeden, who also had a crash on the same day as Vino, to shepherd him to the line. He didn’t lose as much time as I thought he might, but having already lost over a minute after his crash, he can’t afford to lose any more.

Then we saw the T-Mobile team leap from mediocrity to the highest of highs yesterday when one of their young riders (hell, they’re all young riders), Linus Gerdemann, rode away from his breakaway companions to take a brilliant solo win which not only brought him onto the podium accepting the stage winner’s trophy, but also the yellow jersey and the best young rider’s jersey as well. To top it off, he wore the red number today for the most aggressive rider while the rest of his team wore yellow numbers to signify their status as the best-placed team overall. It was a stunning day for T-Mobile, a team which is working hard to rebuild itself in a new image, and which needed that kind of boost.

And today we finally saw the Chicken Man, Michael Rasmussen, take charge in the mountains competition. He lead a breakaway group over climb after climb, not expecting any help from the other two guys in the break (which was good, because he didn’t get any), and eventually riding away from them on the steepest bit - even though he’d been doing all the work. He won today’s stage by a commanding lead, so not only takes a serious lead in the race for the polka-dot jersey, he also pulled on the maillot jaune today. He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased on the podium, as the race lead was never his goal - so it can only be seen as a lovely cherry on top of an already lovely sundae.

And what of the other contenders? Poor Michael Rogers abandoned today after crashing on one of the descents, Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans gained a bit of time on some of their rivals, as did Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre, and Levi Leipheimer and Vino managed to limit their losses pretty well. Alberto Contador might have gained more time today than he did had it not been for a mechanical issue near the finish, and Australia’s woes are not limited to Rogers’ abandoning the race - Stuart O’Grady also crashed on a descent and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance wearing a giant neck brace. I really hope he’s okay.

So, tomorrow’s rest day will be welcome respite from what has been an exciting and eventful week of racing; I hope it gives everyone who’s nursing injuries (both physical and mental) a chance to recuperate and regain focus, because there’s plenty of racing yet to be done. Isn’t this fun?

Read the complete race report here, once it’s up.

photo by Agence France Presse

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