[Tour 2004]Stage 9 - St. Leonard de Noblat to Gueret

[tour-junkie]

We start the day with fewer riders - Stefano Casagranda of Saeco and Martin
Hvastija of Alessio have been released from the Tour due to drug
investigations.  Earlier this summer, Race Director Jean-Marie LeBlanc had
stated that no rider who was the subject of a drug investigation would be
allowed in the Tour, or would be allowed to stay in the Tour.

The investigations which effect these riders are not related to the Tour
itself, but were from earlier events.

Another rider not starting was Samuel Dumoulin of Ag2R, who suffered what
turned out to be a broken elbow after a dog ran into the peleton
during the rider to Quimper.

---------------------------------------------------
Stage 9 - St. Leonard de Noblat to Gueret - 160 km
Today the riders leave from the hometown of Raymond Poulidor, the much loved
rider who competed in 14 Tours, finished on the podium 8 times and yet never
managed to pull on the Yellow Jersey by the end. The topography will kick up
a bit, though there are only two categorized climbs on the shortest stage of
this year's Tour.  Still there are a number of changes in elevation, with
some sharp uncategorized climbs and rolling bits, perhaps favoring an
aggressive break.  But, the final 50 km are calmer, and the sprinters will
not have much time to shine in the next few days, so they may have an added
impetus to fetch any escapees.

The finish is close and tight today - with more obstacles among the roadway.
Bob Roll voiced some concern as the race heads into a fairly small town for
today's finish.

Attacks hit the bunch almost from the roll out, putting the hurt into the
rested legs of the bunch. It has good and bad effects - it puts Filippo
Simeoni from Domina Vacanza and Inigo Landaluze from Euskatel out in a lead
pair that move 4:45 away from the bunch.  But, it causes Jaan Kirsipuu to
ride off to the side of the road and turn in his numbers - having ridden his
11th Tour this year and achieved a perfect record of incompletion.

Rabobank's Karsten Kroon is halfway between the main bunch, not sure if he
will be able to cut into the lead of the breakaway pair.  He's gapped the
peloton, but has been unable to reduce the deficit to the twosome.

Jan Ullrich spends a huge amount of time at the side of the road, working
with his mechanic to reposition his saddle (a la Eddy Merkcx). Clearly, he
took the right moment to do so, and they quickly regain the bunch.

On today's first categorized climb, none other than Iban Mayo nipped away
from the bunch and snagged the points.

The gap has moved out to 6:36, with Kroon still staggering at 4:12 behind
the pair.  It's become a reasonably ill-advised effort for this rider, and
unless there is some tactical plan in place, it probably it time for him to
tuck in his sail and ease back to the big bunch.

The sun begins to shiine in earnest, and there is a thing known as "blue
skies".  The bunch may have taken this opportunity to slather on the sun
screen, as the gap has pushed out to nearly 8 minutes. Ok, sunscreen _and_
clean off their glasses, as another 50 seconds quickly gets added to their
deficit with 44 miles to go.  Granted, they are rolling through the feed
zone, so maybe they are a bit distracted. La Boulangerie continues to set
the pace, but the riders seem quite happy to putter along right now, with
fearful dreams of tomorrow's effort looming in the backs of their minds.

With just under 40 miles left on the day, the gap has finally hit the 10
minute mark.  Karsten Kroon, who has not been pedaling very hard, finally
just pulls off to the side to pay respects to the underbrush. Cameras stay
on him much longer than anyone feels comfortable about, but finally switch
away to other scenes. Flollowing that, they load him up with bottles and he
rolls back to the bunch.  Credit Agricole finally decides that they need to
do something, pushing the pace and beginning the hard work of reducing the
gap.

Well, the dog wandered in to request some breakfast, and by the time we do
all the business, the peloton has awakened - Lotto, Quick-Step and Credit
Agricole have rolled down their arm warmers and started smacking the pace.
They push it down under 8 minutes in pretty short order, giving hope to
their big men who can bend the cranks over the final kilometer.

Just over 27 miles to the finish, the breakaway pair hold onto a dwindling
6:50 as they begin to hit the nasty undulations that will be the feature of
the final bits of the course.

Cofidis rider Jimmy Caspar fires away from the bunch - he's not so much
interested in the Sprint Points in the town of Pontarion as he is attempting
to prevent Lotto's Robbie McEwen from gaining any more ground agains Stuart
O'Grady.  O'Grady and McEwen wisely decide to save themselves for the final
bits of the race today, and they know that if they went for these points
their effort and the ensuing response would knock the other teams off of
their smooth chasing rotation.  He neutralizes the points and no one bothers
with him as he sits up and dives back into the group.

The devil appears running alongside a small lake, as the leading pair have a
5:51 gap.  The chase has continued in earnest, but they may have left things
just a hair too late.  The roads are still dry, but the sun left some time
ago behind a high cloud cover.  The peloton has squeezed the fat out of the
bunch - stretching everything out and cutting things down to nearly 5
minutes before too many more miles go under their wheels.

Now Cofidis pitches in as the gap twists down another 35 seconds.  They are
moving fast enough that you can literally see the time drop on the screen
readout - sort of the reverse of watching your gas fill up.  With the 25 km
to go banner passing overhead, the break partners continue to work well
together. The bunch screams along now, aided by inspired riders and a slight
downhill. Even climber Richard Virenque has pitched in for Quick-Step to
reduce the deficit.  3:18 now shows as the gap.  Now 3:04 as they hit the 20
km to go banner.

Servais Knaven and Davide Bramati from Quick-Step have been doing the lions
share of the pulling.  Others like Paolo Bettini will nip in for a short
time, but when either of these two set up at the head of events, the others
might as well pitch a tent as these pros thump out an insanely steady and
powerful pace.

Up front, Simeoni is showing some signs of strain - not quite able to match
a moderate accelleration by Landaluze.  They pull back together, but the
Basque seems to have just a bit more left in the tank.  They have a 2:17 gap
with only 8.5 miles to go.

FDJeux.com push up into the rotation, which may mean that Baden Cooke may be
feeling a bit stronger.  Folks are getting a wee bit nasty in the bunch, a
Cofidis rider gives a full-on playground push to a Domina Vacanza rider who
has been trying to edge his way in and disrupt the rotation of the chasers.
You rarely see such a strong - and illegal - response.  It must have a bit
to do with the efforts that have been expended in running down the break.

===== crash in the field
Someone cut across the roadway and hit full into center lane divider -
He may be OK, but Kurt-Asle Arvesen gets flung off his bike and slams down
hard as his bike gets knocked out from under him.  He's back upright, but
looks as shaky as you would expect.  A replay shows just how high he flew
after his bike disappearred.  He landed pretty much on head and shoulder.

In the confusion, a break of three becomes six and has gained a little
daylight as Juan Antonio Flecha of Fassa Bortolo, Michael Rogers of Quick
Step and Lotto's Axel Merkcx are the recognizable members - a bit of anarchy
descends into the main bunch as other riders try to peel the tires off of
their wheels.

Now only 6.2 km to go - the lead cut to 52 seconds as the opportunistic
six-pack is reabsorbed.

5 km to go and another gap appears at the front.  The speed of the bunch
continues to increase.  If this were a Bugs Bunny cartoon, the needle would
be at "Fast, Ain't It?".

4 km to go, the break has only a 40 second lead.  They are on a ride through
the town and finish at the far side of the village on a road built espcially
for the finish.  Landaluze makes a hard effort to gain a gap, but he gets
reeled back by the dogged effort of Simeoni

Now FDJeux.com whips up the pace and string things out once more. Just when
you thought the pace couldn't increase....The gap down to 25 seconds with
about 3 km to go.  This will be extremely close.

Landaluze keeps looking back over his shoulder as Simeoni has taken over
pulling the pair.  He trades off with his break partner and they've managed
to hang onto a 20 second lead

The lead pair scream under the 1 km to go banner, but any dinking around
will mean that they will be caught.  So immediately, Simeoni refuses to go
to the front, then realizes his error and pushes ahead as he hears 170-odd
drivetrains clattering up behind them.

And here comes the bunch, howling after them on this slight uphill finish.
The gap is squeezing down as the riders spit and snarl up to the rear wheels
of the pair who have been away for so long today.

Under 100 meters, the Basque Landaluze goes hard, but the swarming pack
finds them within 50 meters of the line - McEwen Zabel, Hushovd and O'Grady
all come twisting around him.  Many others get held back slightly as the two
former leaders go backwards through the spinters.

McEwen screams up against the rails as O'Grady hugs his wheel before
launching his own sprint.  Right up the middle of the roadway, the big
Norwegian Thor Hushovd creates a visible wake as he plows toward the finish.
Zabel cannot quite match the speed of these three and Tom Boonen is caught
up in the traffic.  O'Grady, Hushovd and McEwen all throw their bikes at the
line, but McEwen nips them!  Hushovd manages a tire-width lead over O'Grady.
Landaluze just manages to hold onto 10th place.

Stage 9 - Results
1 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - 3:32:55
2 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole
3 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis
4 - Jerome Pineau - La Boulangerie
5 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile
6 - Janek Tombak - Cofidis
7 - Tom Boonen - Quick-Step
8 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner
9 - Sergio Marinangeli - Domina Vacanza
10 - Inigo Landaluze - Euskatel-Euskadi
All riders s.t.

O'Grady's finishing time bonus moves him slightly closer to yellow and
Backstedt and Piil suffer some minor losses as they got held behind the
crash, but othewise, there are no noticeable changes in the overall.

General Classification -
1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 36:36:31
2 - O'Grady - @2:53
3 - Casar - @4:06
4 - Backstedt - @6:27
5 - Piil - @ 7:09


Tomorrow's Stage - 
Limoges to Saint-Flour - 237 km
It will be a long day in the saddle, actually the longest of the Tour as the
roads begin to kick up a bit.  We will encounter two Cat 2 climbs which
bookend the day's Cat 1 climb.  The climbs will intensify along the route of
the course, peaking at kilometer 177, when the 1580 meter peak of the Col du
Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary) rolls under the wheels after a 5.5 km climb at
an average of 8% - of course there are a few pitches of up to 15%, just to
keep things interesting.  Most of us would be reconsidering what we had for
breakfast just from that, but it is merely the cruelest blow of 9
categorized climbs on the day.  Make no mistake, the topography is becoming
angry and the birds of prey are beginning to spread their wings.


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