Cycling Evening News 25.04.12

Tour de Romandie - Tour of Turkey - Van Dijk wins Gracia prologue - Froome still has bilharzia - Minougou Noufou triumphs in Tour of Togo - 2012 Tour de Pologne biggest ever - Maxifuel partners Tour of Britain - Another blow for women's cycling as Tour du Languedoc-Roussilon cancelled - Kathryn Bertine on racing - Korean stage cancelled - Bus driver who forced student off road may face action - Manchester to benefit from "bike hub" - Geraint Thomas, ambassador for dubious alternative medicine gadget - Newswire

Racing
Tour de Romandie

If Wiggo does at the Tour de France
what he did today...

Stage 1 saw the riders ace a 184.5km parcours beginning at Morges, flat for the initial 70km and then swinging  sharply upwards for a climb to Rochefort at 750m above sea level before reaching Category 2 Les Bugnenets after 90km (1,116m), Cat 2 Haut de la Cote at 156km (1,035m) and Cat 3 Le Communal de la Sagne at 171km (1,158m). Sky's Geraint Thomas set out in the yellow jersey after achieving the best time of 3'29" for the prologue time trial, but did so with a lead insufficient to guarantee he'd keep it at the end of the stage; especially as - with a flat final section on the way to the finish line at La Chaux-de-Fonds, this one looked like being a day for the sprinters.

It wasn't, however, because Sky's Bradley Wiggins (with a little help from the weather, to be fair, because the sprinters won't have enjoyed the wind) decided today was the day he was going to show the world what he plans to do in the Tour de France - and if he does there what he did today, British cycling might just get the winner they've been hoping for ever since Tom Simpson died in the witches' cauldron of Mont Ventoux. Mark Cavendish, who on paper looked to be the team's best hope today, once again came off worse in a battle with a climb and was irretrievably dropped 30km from the finish line on the Haut de la Cote, as was team mate Geraint Thomas, leaving Sky's chances looking distinctly shaky when as the race entered the final 20km.

When Wiggins got into mechanical difficulties and had to be helped back to the front, it looked like it was all over - but Wiggins has the one ability that sets the greatest all-rounders apart from the rest, and that's the power of speedy recovery. Entering the final sprint, he found an untapped reserve of strength and literally catapulted himself past the bunch to cross the line solo with a lead of seven seconds; and while there will be those who rapidly point out that it was a sprint free of the real Points competition specialists (they're right, and Wiggo will be under no illusions that had the weather have been more to their liking this stage would not have been his) it remains a very impressive win.

Team mate Michael Rogers took second place, Rabobank's Bauke Mollema and Stef Clements were two seconds behind Rogers. The rest? Er - who?

Top Ten
  1.  Bradley Wiggins Sky 4h53'51"
  2.  Michael Rogers Sky +7"
  3.  Bauke Mollema Rabobank +9"
  4.  Stef Clement Rabobank ST
  5.  Andrew Talansky Garmin-Barracuda 0+11"
  6.  Wilco Kelderman Rabobank ST
  7.  David Zabriskie Garmin-Barracuda +12"
  8.  Simon Spilak Katusha ST
  9.  Ruben Plaza Molina Movistar ST
  10.  Tiago Machado RadioShack-Nissan +13" 
  Denis Menchov (Katusha) and Sergey Lagutin (Vacansoleil-DCM) did not finish. (Full results and GC)

Tomorrow, the race moves over the border and into France to start at Montbéliard (with a castle that should not be missed), then covers 134.6km across Cat 3 Bourrignon (876m), Cat 2 Les Ecorcheresseses (920m) and and Cat 2 La Caquerelle/Col del Rangieres (856m) before ending with a 14.5km uphill drag to Moutier in the Swiss Jura.

Tour of Turkey
Stage 4 pitted the riders against one another on  parcours along the craggy south-western coast of Muğla Province. As a complete contrast to Stage 2's 1,850m ascent of the Göğübeli Mountain Pass, the highest climb, located at Göcek, was only 300m - Göcek, according to legend, is the place that Icaraus fell into the sea and drowned after flying too close to the sun; with a steady gradient of 10% this climb, though not high, is equally capable of ending the dreams of inexperienced would-be high-flyers. No fewer than seven similarly steep climbs of varying length were spaced evenly across the 132km route with the second biggest of the day, rising to around 260m, coming in the last 20km before a steep descent and arrival at Marmaris an the finish.

Mark Renshaw

Mark Renshaw proved that Rabobank knew exactly what they were doing when they signed him up for 2012, despite the nay-sayers who claimed he was no good for anything other leading out Mark Cavendish, crossing the line with a lead no greater than a spoke's thickness ahead of fellow Australian Matthew Goss (GreenEDGE) - and since Goss is one of the fastest sprinters of the current crop, it was a victory that leaves no doubt that Renshaw has more than one string to his bow.

Top Ten
  1.  Mark Renshaw Rabobank 3h14'01"
  2.  Matthew Goss GreenEDGE ST
  3.  Daniele Colli Team Type 1-Sanofi ST
  4.  Boy Van Poppel UnitedHealthcare Presented By Maxxis ST
  5.  Davide Vigano Lampre_ISD ST
  6.  Alexey Tsatevitch Katusha ST
  7.  Florian Vachon Bretagne Schuller ST
  8.  James Vanlandschoot Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda’s ST
  9.  Lucas Sebastian Haedo SaxoBank ST
  10.  Sébastien Turgot Europcar ST
Coen Vermeltfoort (Rabobank), Michael Schwarzmann (NetApp) and Javier Francisco Aramendia Lorente (Caja Rural) did not finish. Muhammet Atalay (Konya Torku Sekersport) did not start. (Full results and GC)

Stage 5 begins at Marmaris, heads across country and then continues along the coastline before heading north across the Bodrum peninsula to the medieval city of Beçin where the riders turn west to Turgutreis. The 177.8km parcours features numerous steep climbs right from the start, rising to 400m at the highest point.

Brits do well in Gracia Orlova as Van Dijk wins prologue

Ellen van Dijk, now with Specialized-Lululemon

The Gracia Orlova began with a 2.2km individual time trial in the Czech city Havířov; the long straight off the start line leading into a short twisty section with a fairly steep climb before a lightning-fast straight back the way the riders came apparently suiting Specialized-Lululemon's Ellen van Dijk very well indeed as she blazed around the course to finish in 2'47". Team mate Trixi Worrack finished only a second slower while GreenEDGE's Melissa Hoskings was 3" down.

It proved a good day for the British riders, too, with Laura Trott (Ibis) taking fourth place, also +3", followed by Katie Colclough (Specialized-Lululemon) in fifth at +5". Sharon Laws (AA Drink-Leontien.nl was 13th with +10" and Laura's older sister Emma Trott (Dolmans-Boels) was 18th, also +10".

Top Ten
  1.  Ellen Van Dijk Specialized-Lululemon 2'47"
  2.  Trixi Worrack Specialized-Lululemon +1"
  3.  Melissa Hoskins GreenEDGE +3"
  4.  Evelyn Stevens Specialized-Lululemon ST
  5.  Laura Trott Ibis ST
  6.  Katie Colclough Specialized-Lululemon +5"
  7.  Marijn De Vries AA Drink-Leontien.nl +7"
  8.  Alexandra Burchenkova S.C. Michela Fanini Rox +8"
  9.  Laura Van Der Kamp Dolmans-Boels ST
  10.  Isabelle Soderberg AA Drink-Leontien.nl +9" (Full results when available)

Froome still has bilharzia
Team Sky's Chris Froome is still suffering from bilharzia, the tropical disease that affected his 2011 season and from he thought he'd recovered. Also known as schistosomiasis, the condition is caused by a parasitic trematode worm that enters the body usually via contact with infected water inhabited by snails that carry the parasite. Symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, fatigue, genital lesions and a high white blood cell count as the worms feed on red cells while in the liver.

A chest infection that lasted longer than expected prevented Froome from taking part in Paris-Nice this year. On his website, the rider says that tests "revealed active bilharzia parasites in my system, which I have been trying to get rid of for the past 18 months. This would explain why the chest infection affected me so severely and it took me so long to get over.”

Minougou Noufou triumphs in Tour of Togo
Minougou Noufou won the 21st International Tour of Togo yesterday (Tuesday) after leading the General Classification since the second stage, while his Burkina Faso squad won the Teams Category against competitors from Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, France, Nigeria and Togo. It's the third Togo victory for the 24-year-old rider as he also won in 2010 and 2011.

Biggest Tour de Pologne ever
25 teams will take part in this year's Tour de Pologne - the most in the 84 year history of the race, which was held sporadically after 1928 before becoming an annual event in 1952.

The race has been scheduled three weeks earlier than its usual late July/early August start this year to avoid clashes with the Olympics. All 18 ProTour teams - Ag2r-La Mondiale, Astana, BMC, Euskaltel-Euskadi, FDJ-BigMat, Garmin-Barracuda, GreenEDGE, Katusha, Lampre-ISD, Liquigas-Cannondale, Lotto-Belisol, Movistar, Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Rabobank, RadioShack-Nissan, Sk, Team SaxoBank and Vacansoleil-DCM - will attend, as will wildcards the Polish National team, Argos-Shimano, Caja Rural, Colnago-CSF Inox, Farnese Vini-Selle Italia, Team Type1-Sanofi and Utensilnord Named.

Originally oganised as an amateur event and entered chiefly by Polish riders, the Tour has attracted an international field ever since 1993 when it was opened up to professionals and has grown into one of Europe's most anticipated stage races, becoming part of the UCI's ProTour in 2005 with results counted towards the World Ranking since 2009.

"We received many inquiries about the possibility of taking part in this year's Tour of Poland. We're very happy about this, because it shows that the race is growing every year," says race director Czeslaw Lang.

Maxifuel partners Tour of Britain
Maxifuel - "the UK’s preferred endurance brand from sport nutrition experts Maxinutrition," according to the official press release (I rely on tea and cakes personally, but there you have it) - has announced that it will be the new sports nutrition partner to the Tour of Britain and the Halfords Tour Series. Financial details have not been revealed, but the manufacturer "will provide amateur riders with individually-tailored nutritional support to complement their lifestyle, training and racing schedules as well as support professional participants and race enthusiasts through sampling opportunities at the various events."

"I’d like to welcome Maxifuel to The Tour family of events, and we look forward to working together in what is a very important year for British sport," says Tour director Mick Bennet. "I am sure spectators and our Tour Ride participants will be looking forward to exploring Maxifuel’s range of products with the aim of helping them to improve their performance."

Other News
The 2012 Women's Tour du Languedoc-Roussilon has been cancelled, further evidence that while the UCI are busily slapping each other's blue-blazered backs over the financial health of men's cycling the women's sport continues to suffer.

"That's bike racing? Really?" (Kathryn Bertine on racing and the Energiwacht Tour, ESPN-W)

Stage 4 at the Tour of Korea was cancelled today (Wednesday) due to torrential rainstorms. Organisers issued a press release shortly after the announcement, stating the following: "Due to adverse weather conditions, Tour de Korea race officials made the difficult decision to cancel today’s fourth stage from Yeosu to Geochang shortly after the race left the neutralized zone."

Cycling
Bus forces Leicester cyclist off the road
A Leicester student, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he was cycling on the city's Belvoir Street when a bus overtook him at a narrow "traffic calming" point and forced him onto the pavement - and the driver then stopped the vehicle, got out and started shouting at him for riding in the middle of the road.

The incident was captured on the rider's helmet-mounted camera and the driver could now face disciplinary action.

Manchester to benefit from "bike hub"
Manchester is to spend part of a £4.9 million grant awarded to promote sustainable transport on the construction of a 200-space "bike hub" in the basement of the city's Piccadilly Gardens - the first of thirteen planned bike hubs throughout the city.

The facility will be accessible to cyclists who pay for a smart card and will include secure cycle parking, a changing area and a bike shop which will also offer repairs - and it could be open as early as this summer. (more from the Manchester Evening News)

Geraint Thomas, Bioflow ambassador

Geraint Thomas, star cyclist and hippy

Sky and Team GB's Welsh star Geraint Thomas says he's "delighted to be teaming up with Bioflow and joining their stable of elite athletes" and adds, "I wore my Bioflow Sport wristband for the first time when I was out in Melbourne and we broke the World record and won gold! I‟m looking forward to enjoying more success with them as well as the long-term benefits Bioflow's magnotherapy technology has to offer."

Magnotherapy, for those who remain ignorant of its supposed benefits, is a pseudoscientific "alternative medicine." Practitioners claim a range of desirable effects including pain relief and even cancer management, but there is no reliable, peer-reviewed scientific evidence that it has any effect whatsoever - which is why most countries ban practitioners from calling it medicine.

Newswire
Britain: Halfords, Britain's biggest bike retailer, has announced a 5.7% increase in sales of bikes and bike accessories during the final quarter of the last financial year. Meanwhile, overall sales - which includes car parts and motoring accessories - fell by 2.7%. (More from Bike Europe)

Britain: Revealed: the country’s worst roads for cyclists (The Times)

Britain: Don Maclean (34) from Liverpool is to be part of a team of 8 wounded personnel who will compete in the 3,051 mile cycle Race Across America (RAAM) this June (Click Liverpool)

Pakistan: Punjab University dominate second day at Women's Cycling Championship (Daily Times)

Tibet: Explore Tibet, a sustainable Tibetan-run travel company based in Lhasa, introduces a 20-day cycling and camping tour across the most scenic landscape in the world (SFGate)

USA: National and international professional cycling returns to St. Louis May 11-13 with the Missouri Professional Cycling Series (West End Word)

USA: Share the road with cyclists (Times-Standard)

Tour de France: Stage 12 Debrief

"I just wanted to get stuck in, I just gave it everything to try to stay away." (Geraint Thomas)

Is Frank going to beat Andy to
a Tour de France win?

When we suggested earlier today that Stage 12 was going to be an entirely different sort of race, we were more right than we could even have hoped to be. In fact, it was so different that it wasn't just different to the earlier stages, it was completely different to the stage we expected. We were most certainly not the only ones to expect Andy Schleck and the LeopardTrek boys to emerge out of the peloton and dominate the moment the parcours turned pointy - and to be fair, they did for a while and Schleck rode extremely well, putting the wind up quite a few. Thing is, they tried to dominate too early and after an admittedly very impressive show of strength fell back, unable to keep up with their own style.

Oh, and the Schleck who rode well wasn't Andy - it was Frank.

One rider really shone today, defying all expectations after what hasn't been a good start for his team and in the process of doing so revealed himself to be the next top dog on the roster. If you haven't seen the results yet, chances are it's not someone you'd have expected, so all we'll say right now is he won a very well deserved Combativity prize for his efforts.

One other rider, predicted likely to outclass the bunch, had an absolutely dismal day: that man was Alberto Contador, favourite (until recently) for the overall General Classification win. Who knows what's got into Bertie this year? Not that it matters - the one thing we all know is that a lot of people are going to be wondering if it's more a case of what hasn't got into him, now that he's anti-doping control's number one target. For the record, we'll be sticking with him and considering him innocent unless the day comes when he is proven beyond doubt guilty; but, well, makes you fink, dunnit?

Unfortunately Romain Feillu, who has spent so much of the last 11 days wowing the crowds as part of some spectacular breakaways, is no longer with the race after being forced to abandon overnight due to the tendinitis from which he's been suffering for some time. However, anyone who has experienced this ailment will concede he's done brilliantly well to have kept going for as long as he has, never mind lead the race so often as he has.

Romain Feillu abandoned overnight.

Monsieur Prudhomme waved his flag to signal the end of the rolling neutral zone and the race got underway at 11:19 and within two kilometres Ruben Moreno, Laurent Mangel, Blel Kadri, Jose Ivan Gutierrez, Jeremy Roy and Geraint Thomas were testing the pack to see if there was any chance of escaping the peloton. Having decided they fancied their chances, they went for it and had an advantage of 20" by the time another two klicks were up. This is the sort of breakaway that can get the peloton worried because Thomas, despite having never won a stage in the Tour, is an outside contender for General Classification success, especially now he doesn't have to support team leader Bradley Wiggins who crashed out back in Stage 7 and even more so when they need to conserve energy for upcoming mountains. With today's mountains including the mighty Col du Tourmalet, the main pack decided energy saving was the best option and the escapees were left to get on with it - after all, there was a high probability that those same mountains would defeat them.

Thomas: brilliant now, stupendous
next year.

By 11.5km as the leaders reached Saint-Clar-de-Rivière, they were 2'35" out in front and still going strong, managing to build it up to a full four minutes shortly after entering the department of Gers. The peloton were ambling along quite happily, content to take this flatter first section easy at 35kmph. Had the race have stopped at this point, the G-Man would have taken the yellow jersey - which makes him far and away the best male Welsh Tour rider in history (we've italicised "male" because Swansea-born Nicole Cooke won two Tours de France Féminin).

This breakaway was beginning to look a bit too much like a successful one, meaning that the peloton's worries became outright anxiety. With the escapees fast approaching Castéra-Vignoles 7' minutes ahead, yellow jersey Thomas Voeckler was heard informing his team's directeur-sportif Dominique Arnould that he didn't want the gap to get any greater than 8'. Yet by the time they'd passed Nizan-Gesse they'd added another half-minute and the same again at Boudrac, which would normally result in a chase. However, Arnould advised patience, stating that in his opinion a gap of as much as 10' wouldn't be an issue. Calmness prevailed and the peloton cruised into the feeding station at Lannemezan 8'30" after the escapees had been through.

Their advantage meant that the lead group were unchallenged by the big-hitters when they reached Sarrancolin and the intermediate sprint, but they didn't hand about on the way and added another 30". Laurent Mangel of Saur-Sojasun was the first through for 20 points. 2. Jeremy Roy (FDJ) 17pts; 3. Blel Kadri (ALM) 15pts; 4. Ruben Perez Moreno (EUS) 13pts; 5. Jose Ivan Gutirrez (MOV) 11pts; 6 Geraint Thomas (SKY) 10pts.

Cav wants points, Cav gets
points. Such is the Natural
Order of Things.

Back in the pack, a certain Manxman was seen to be nonchalently making his forward. Cavendish, as we all know, is probably the best sprinter in professional cycling but with the remainder of the Tour being for the most part mountain stages - which, to be honest, he's pretty dreadful at -  he'll be wanting to grab what he can in the intermediate sprints from now on. Which means he was the first of the peloton to get through, of course, because when Cav wants to win a sprint he almost invariably does. 8. Mark Renshaw (THR) 8pts; 9. Jose Joaquin Rojas (MOV) 7pts; 10. Matt Goss (THR) 6pts; 11. Francisco Ventoso (MOV) 5pts; 12. Borut Bozic (VCD) 4pts; 13. Philippe Gilbert (OLO) 3pts; 14. Mikael Delage (FDJ) 2pts; 15. Bernhard Eisel (THR) 1pt.


The peloton's speed as it tackled the sprint took a big chunk out of the lead group's advantage, reducing it to 5'50" as they became the first Tour de France riders to set out up the slopes of Hourquette d'Ancizan, making its debut in this year's race. It soon claimed its first victim when Katusha's 24-year-old Denis Galimzyanov found himself unable to match the pace, dropping off the back and laying the foundations for the grupetto that was sure to come just as QuickStep's Sylvain and Vacansoleil's Johnny Hoogerland - still swathed in bandages to protect his 33 stitches - attacked the peloton. Astana's Roman Kreuziger went after them a little later, but the only reaction the peloton made was spitting Cavendish, Bak, Eisel and a few others out the back into the grupetto.

The race leaders reached the top with Mangel taking the top allocation of ten points, in accordance with the new Cat 1 climb rules which state that the first rider takes 10 points, the second 8pts, third 6pts, fourth 4pts,  fifth 2pts and sixth 1pt. As was the case with the new intermediate sprint rules, it's not yet entirely clear why the rules had to be changed but even those of us who remained dismissive of the sprint changes will have to admit that it turns out the old UCI knew what they were about after all; so let's hold on for a moment before we accuse them of fixing something that ain't broke - because if something ain't broke, there's no harm in taking it apart and making it go faster.

Another disaster, in a Tour riddled with disasters, very nearly got the better of Thomas shortly after he crested the top of the mountain - rounding a switchback in front of a fan waving the Welsh flag, he suddenly veered off the road and through a gap between a car and a quad bike coming to a stop on the grassy verge, 20cm from a steep slope which while unlikely to be lethal could very easily have sent him the way of Wiggins. Early explanations suggested he'd seen the flag and lost concentration, but following the race the G-Man said that he thought there may have been something on the road surface. We suspect that, if someone were to have a close look, they might find a few spots of diesel - the several rather ropy-looking old campervans arranged about the bend being likely culprits. This theory is apparently strengthened by the fact that not only did Thomas nearly do the same thing again seconds later, suggesting either another patch or contaminated tyre/brake pad rubber, but another crash involving other riders happened in precisely the same place once the peloton showed up.

Now, LeopardTrek moved up to the front of the peloton. Andy Schleck, known as one of the nicest men in the sport, has earned himself an army of fans in the last couple of years and many believe that 2011 is going to be his year - this seemed likely to be the moment that he would begin winning. As they started on the long, hard climb up Tourmalet they looked almost impossibly good, pulling like a train - even Fabian Cancellara, though he was back in the autobus rather than with his team, looked reasonably comfortable considering he's Cancellara and this was Tourmalet. Europcar were unceremoniously outclassed as LeopardTrek took full control, dominating the front of the main group. Meanwhile, out at the front, Kreuziger finally managed to catch and drop Sylvain Chavanel.

Andy Schleck: arsing about, on
bad form or playing a very long
and intricate mind game?

Out at the front, something quite remarkable had happened: the pursuit specialist Geraint Thomas was leading the breakaway. What's more, he was looking perfectly comfortable while doing so, still pulling strongly and showing no signs of stopping. Kreuziger was dropping rider after rider - Gutierrez was the first go, then Mangel and before long the Welshman was out on his own as he passed through La Mongie, two thirds of the way to the top. Could be keep going?

Andy Schleck remained calm and collected as a team mechanic changed his front wheel. Andy is Andy, so laid-back it's a wonder his blonde hair doesn't get tangled in his rear derailleur, but I'm not convinced even Gandhi would have stayed so calm if forced to wait during such a career-defining moment. Is it possible that he didn't want to win the stage? If not, we can only guess at what the hell he's playing at but as we've said before he's a clever rider and we're not convinced that a little bit of his famous niceness isn't used to hide a very sharp and ruthless understanding of psychology. Only a fool would write him off just yet.

Marmot!!!

There are two cute, cuddly creatures which thrive at altitude in the Pyrenees. One of them is the Schleck, the other is the Marmot. There's also a fierce predator that savagely hunts down its prey up there - it's called a Contador. Some people think Contador isn't as dangerous as he once was, but the Saxobank riders know better and sent out Jesus Hernandez to up the tempo in an effort to increase the pressure. Was El Pistolero about to come out with all guns firing?

Further up the mountain, Thomas had finally dropped behind Roy who took the 20 points for being the first to conquer the mountain. The Welshman had failed, but was awarded the Combativity award for his efforts - which ought to keep him happy for the time being, especially since by this time next year he'll be a race-hardened 26-year-old. We will never know if Britain had a Tour winner in Wiggins this year, but it looks very much as though the next one is already primed and in the chamber. By the time they reached the last climb, another Hors-Categorie ordeal provided this time by Luz-Ardiden, they were still over 3' ahead of the pack.

Prior to the start, Euskaltel-Euskadi's Sammy Sanchez had left no doubts that he wanted the stage. He may have been born in Asturias, far to the west of the Basque country, but he's long been an adopted son of the tiny mountain nation and the Haute-Pyrenees are his training ground so it was no surprise when he broke out of the peloton and surged ahead for a 13" lead - but with 13km of hard slog still to go, had be moved too soon? But he's wiser than that - reaching a group including his team-mate Ruben Moreno some 20" ahead, he rode with them, thus placing himself in an ideal position for future attacks. Back down the road, it had become obvious that Frank and Andy had driven their team too hard: their LeopardTrek comrades had given all they could and fallen back, leaving the brothers riding alone.

Sanchez had now joined forces with Omega-Pharma's Jelle Vanendert, himself a highly-respected climber, and the two were united in hot pursuit of Thomas and Roy who were fighting to keep a lead of around a minute on them with 10km to go. They soon caught them, and Roy gave up the fight. It wasn't long for Thomas, either, and the pair fell back to the chase group lead by yellow jersey Thomas Voeckler. With 5km to go, they were over a minute ahead and the strain was showing, but the honourary Basque wasn't running on empty yet. Standing up, he pushed himself even harder and attacked Vanendert.

In the peloton, more proof that Andy has a dark side: he was playing his favourite game, Trying To Rile Up Contador. We've all seen him at it - he did it all the way through the Pyrenees and the Alps last year, waiting until his old rival is starting to suffer and then riding up behind him with a big friendly grin on his face. Now he'd stomped on the pedals for a bit of a jump forward, forcing Contador to do the same. But poor Bertie's outnumbered this year because Frank is in the best form of his life, so he had to respond again when the older brother did it too before shooting off to attack the race leaders and leaving the pair of them behind. Others  gave chase, but he crossed the line just behind Sanchez and Vanendert alone, taking a very impressive third place.

Sammy Sanchez

One thing is as clear as the alpine lakes that the peloton will be passing in a few days' time in this stage: Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador are obsessed with one another. Every second of every race is spent examining one another, probing the other rider's form for cracks and testing strengths. It is enormously entertaining to watch, but Andy's ever going to win this damn race he needs to move on: last year, Contador was the only thing that stood in Andy's way - but now, Contador's reign may be over; he just no longer has what he used to have, actually losing time in this stage where he was once unbeatable.

What Andy needs to do now is forget his old enemy. It's time to concentrate on the mountains, time to turn his attention to winning stages.

Stage 12 Results:

1. SANCHEZ Samuel 6h 01' 15"  
2. VANENDERT Jelle + 00' 07"
3. SCHLECK Frank + 00' 10"
4. BASSO Ivan + 00' 30"
5. EVANS Cadel + 00' 30"
6. SCHLECK Andy + 00' 30"
7. CUNEGO Damiano 161 + 00' 35"
8. CONTADOR Alberto + 00' 43"
9. VOECKLER Thomas + 00' 50"
10. ROLLAND Pierre + 00' 50"


Overall General Classification results following Stage 12:

1. VOECKLER Thomas 51h 54' 44"  
2. SCHLECK Frank + 01' 49"
3. EVANS Cadel + 02' 06"
4. SCHLECK Andy + 02' 17"
5. BASSO Ivan + 03' 16"
6. CUNEGO Damiano + 03' 22"
7. CONTADOR Alberto + 04' 00"
8. SANCHEZ Samuel + 04' 11"
9. DANIELSON Tom + 04' 35"
10. ROCHE Nicolas + 04' 57"


Points: Marl Cavendish (260); Mountains: Sammy Sanchez (40); Youth: Arnold Jeanesson (52h00'34"); Team: LeopardTrek (155h09'18"); Combativity: Geraint Thomas.

Wiggo wows 'em

Bradley Wiggins, fresh from his Critérium du Dauphiné success, stormed ahead to victory in yesterday's Men's Road Race final in Stamfordham and, with a 35" lead over team mates Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh, proved why it is he's Britain's best hope for the Tour de France in many years. Judging by the cheers coming from the spectators, most people had no uncertainty about that anyway. Thomas, meanwhile, demonstrated the sort of skill that has led to him being a part of Wiggins' Tour team by chasing down and pulling back Kennaugh after an attempt on the leadership within sight of the end.

Wiggins used his respectable time trialing skills to great effect yesterday in Stamfordham - having got up to a high rate of knots, he just kept on turning the gears. When it came to the finish, he had one last reserve where others were spent.

The three formed part of a large breakaway early on in the race and kept the pace high, putting the pressure on the rest of the group and eventually splitting it in two, at which point they began to build up their lead. Various riders dropped away from the second group, finding the effort too much, until it too consisted of just three men -  Rapha-Condor's Kristian House, ex-MTB and cyclocross star Ian Bibby of Motorpoint and the Sky boys' team mate Ian Stannard. They kept chasing, but they didn't have the power necessary to catch up. Meanwhile, the rest of the pack languished some seven minutes further back. Even the Manx Missile Mark Cavendish, one of the fastest cyclists to have ever lived, couldn't keep up and so had no chance of taking the final sprint - he finished outside the top ten. However, it's the sprints at which he excels and we can still expect to see him racking up the points in the Tour, which starts this coming Saturday.


23-year-old Ben Swift, who will be joining Wiggins and Thomas in France, also achieved a good result. He may have been 8'13" off Wiggin's time, but it was sufficient to take 7th place. As he matures over the coming four or five years he may well prove to be the man to take on Wiggins' mantle and become Britain's next cycling star.


Towards the end, there was no way of knowing which of the three men was going to be first over the line until Kennaugh decided to attack. Thomas went after him and while their attention was diverted Wiggins surged ahead, finding one last reserve of strength that after 122 miles the other men simply didn't have, and powered across the line ahead of them in what must have been one of the most exciting finishes many of the spectators have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The 31-year-old, who was born in Ghent but has lived in the UK since early childhood, will now have the honour of wearing the blue and white National Champion's jersey in the Tour, but don't expect him to do so for long. He'll be wanting to swap it for a yellow one before too long, 
and it's looking more and more like he has the ability to do so.


1st - Bradley Wiggins (Sky) 4h41'08"
2nd - Geraint Thomas (Sky) +35"
3rd - Peter Kennaugh (Sky) received same time
4th - Ian Stannard (Sky) +5'41"
5th - Ian Bibby (Motorpoint) +8'02"
6th - Kristian House (Rapha Condor) +8'05"
7th - Ben Swift (Sky) +8'13"
8th - Yanto Barker (Pendragon) +8'20"
9th - Scott Thwaites (Endura) +8'28"
10th - Andrew Fenn (AN Post) received same time