[Tour 2005]Stage 13 - Miramas - Montpellier

[race-report@cyclofiend.com]

Stage 13 - Miramas - Montpellier 173 km
After a short little climb at the 26 km mark, wind and traffic islands
will be the only imepediments. Flat, flat and more flat should play to
the teams of the sprinters.

The day unfolds hot and a bit windy. The race is beginning to take its
toll on the announcing team as well. They start the day with a series of
giddy tangents. An odd animation which ends up with a plastic Bob Roll
covered in mayonnaise as part of a sandwich should give you an idea of
how bizarre things have gotten.

35 Sprint points are on the line today, the maximum amount available. A
win could push Lotto's Robbie McEwen into Green, if Thor Hushovd gets
separated before the the finish. Not a likely scenario, and as always,
there are points for 2nd place on down.

Easy and sunny exodus from the Miramas.
162 riders start the day. 6 of 21 teams are intact.
Lotto

At 22 km, a breakaway forms and accellerates away:
Thomas Voeckler - Bouygues Telecom
Chris Horner - Saunier Duval
Carlos Da Cruz - FDJ.com
Ludovic Turpin - Ag2R
Juan Antonio Flecha - Fassa Bortolo

Within a short order, they've squeezed out a 9 minute gap. This amount
of time wakes up the Lotto squad who start getting after things. Their
pacemaking cuts the time down to under 7 minutes. The Lampre squad has
also dug in to assist with the pull-back.

As the riders go through the feed zone, Alejandro Valverde of Illes
Balears slow-pedals all alone. The word has come over race radio that he
will be abandoning. His continuing tendonitits from his knee has finally
caught up with him. Cleverly, he pulls a 180 degree turn and escapes the
bulk of the press corps. They catch up with him at the team car, where
his numbers are removed as he keeps his glasses on to hide rapidly
moistening eyes. His White Jersey moves virtually to the shoulders of
Discovery's Yaraslav Popovych

As long as we're talking about knee issues, word has also come through
that Quick-Step's Tom Boonen, who had already abandoned with a badly
swollen knee, should be back to training after only a few days rest.
He's now set his sights on the World Championships later this year in
Spain, which will tend to favor a sprinter.

The strung-out peleton has been brought back to about 4:34, Lotto still
hammering things along with the the assistance of Lampre.

American Chris Horner sits in 28th overall today, and has remained no
more than 15:22 behind Armstrong. After breaking his leg in an early
season race this year, he has brought his form back on well, winning a
stage in the Tour of Switzerland.

The pace has remained quite high today - steadily in the neighborhood of
32 mph. The break members have all continued digging in, taking short,
sharp pulls to try to hold their lead. But, the hard-charging bunch has
pulled within 3:45. It will be interesting to see what happens if they
do snag the 5 escapees, as there is bound to be a series of jumps which
will be hard to control with only 4 Lotto riders. Lotto of course does
still have 7 members, but won't sacrifice Cadel Evans, who is positioned
well going into the climbs of the Pyrenees, Freddy Rodriguez, the former
US National Champ who is the leadout man of Robbie McEwen, who they
expect to take the stage.

54 km to go and the gap still remains above 2 minutes. The speed in the
peleton has remained above 50 kph for the past miles. They encounter a
bit more of a crosswind and have echeloned across the roadway - the lead
rider on the hard left gutter of the roadway as his accomplices string
along slightly to his right and back.

47 km and a gap of exactly 2 minutes.

36 km with the gap now down to 1:15

Quickly the bunch lags by only a minute.

The dreadful countdown continues, with the chasers drawing a bead on the
helicopter which hovers above the lead bunch. More frequently now, the
chasers can see them up the wide roadway. At least a few riders among
the peleton are now calculating their attack effort once the bunch has
been absorbed. Voeckler stretches a bit at the back of the break group.
He's opted out of a couple pulls, but it's hard to believe that he's
planning a break. It looks more like he's wrapping his mind around the
inevitable.

Wisely, the Lotto squad let them dangle in the breeze now that they've
closed to under a minute. If they can delay the actual catch, it will
simplify their control of the impending attacks.

25 km to go banner and the gap is :45.

Servais Knaven pips away from the bunch and gains some ground. The
Quick-Step rider uses the speed that won him Paris-Roubaix in 2001 and
the canny tactical sense of a Dutch rider that tells him to go. He's a
strong enough rider to make move like this work, as the lead five pass
under the 20 km to go banner. However, Knaven cannot hold the
screamingly fast pace necesary to outdistance the pack, and he throttles
back and gets caught.

Discovery now finds themselves leading the chase with about 13 km to go.
More than likely, they have taken over the pacemaking to keep the speed
fast enough to discourage attacks.

Sylvan Chavanel takes his try, almost touching wheels with the photo
moto on a hard left hand turn. Chavanel reaches the breakawy bunch and
then howls immediately past them. His efforts pump the escapes lead back
out to 16 seconds as they immediately animate to chase him down. Once
back together, they hesitate and begin the unhelpful dinking around.
Voeckler tries a move, but finds marshmellow muscles.

Chavanel takes a quick couple breaths and goes again, this time
instantly snapping the elastic and going clear. Horner animates and
fires away to nab the Frenchman's rear wheel. They work together and
trade pulls to move away. Somehow Horner keeps finding more energy,
showing new chapters of pain as they hit an incline into town.

The main field has gotten a little puffy, with the gap from them to the
escape pair reaching toward 25 seconds.

Comesso now realizes things are not working well and he moves hard,
chased by a Domina Vacanze rider. But, the peleton follows his efforts
and finally closes down the other remnants of the break.

More little attacks and pulses get things daffy in the big bunch as the
gap closes to 18 seconds.

5 km to go now, Horner takes a glance backwards as Discovery regains the
head of events. The pair remains just out of sight of the Hincapie-led
bunch. 15 second gap.

Chavanel now glances back as they swing around a turn with the 3 km to
go banner. Now only 12 seconds.

The pair pass under the 1 km to go banner, but they have no time to play
any games as the entire bunch keeps increasing their speed. The pelton
howls after them. Horner trails Chavanel in a good position for tactical
moves, but it may not matter - Liquigas hammers to position their big
sprinter Magnus Backsted and every other team with a fast boy has the
same idea. There are enough turns that they may not be able to keep
their speed up. But they are closing extremely fast!

Now Horner goes and its' too late - he comes around Chavanel and breaks
for the line, he would be in great shape if not for the streaking speed
of Freddy Rodriguez, who rockets past him and launches McEwen for the
line. More riders move past and Rodriguez keeps his speed high to
eclipse finish points for Thor Hushovd, who is moving hard but has to
negotiate the slower breakaway pair.

McEwen easily outdistances all chasers, and although he edges slightly
in front of Stuart O'Grady. Rodriquez hangs on for third and Hushovd
hangs on for fifth place. Horner's momentum puts him across the line in
10th.

Other than a bit of a shift with the departure of Valverde, no changes
with the overall. Levi Leipheimer moves up into 6th while Floyd Landis
finds himself in the top ten now.


Stage 13 - Results
1 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - 3:43:14
2 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis
3 - Fred Rodriguez - Lotto
4 - Guido Trenti - Quick-Step
5 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole -
6 - Anthony Geslin - Bouygues Telecom
7 - Robert Forster - Gerolsteiner
8 - Magnus Backsted - Liquigas
9 - Gianluca Bortolami - Lampre
10 - Chris Horner - Saunier Duval

All riders s.t.

GC Standings after 13 Stages:
MJ - Lance Armstrong - 50:13:50
2 - Michael Rasmussen - +:38
3 - Christophe Moreau - +2:34
4 - Ivan Basso - CSC - +2:40
5 - Santiago Botero - Phonak - +3:48
6 - Levi Leipheimer - Gerolstiener - +3:58
7 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - +4:00
8 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - +4:02
9 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile - +4:16
10 - Floyd Landis - Phonak - +4:16


Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 14
Agde - AX-3 Domaines 220 km
A long, hard day in the Pyrenees. Obviously a longer stage, but this
will be toughened by the heat and hilly roads of the region. After that
preamble (hilly meaning four categorized climbs in addition to the
undulations), the riders take on the serious climbs - steeper and
nastier than anything they've dealt with so far this Tour. They will
negotiate the 2000 meter tall Port de Pailheres (15.2 km at 8% average)
and then head up to the finish at AX-3 Domaines (9.1 km at 7.3%)The
final 30 km of this stage will be a cooker.


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