[Tour 2005]Stage 17 - Pau - Revel

[race-report@cyclofiend.com]

Stage 17 Pau - Revel 239 km
The longest stage of the Tour thankfully has moved away from the big
mountains. Though classified as a "flat" stage, the organizers have
managed to sneak in four categorized climbs on a reasonably undulating
topography. While there's nothing longer than 2 km's, climbwise, it will
be a day of ripply bits. Perhaps a rider or two will find a hidden
reserve of power to aniimate things.

Folks complained a little about George Hincapie sitting on to take the
win the other day. Phil actually takes the position that it was a less
than sporting act, while Paul and Bob take the opposite opinion. While
you could argue that he sat back and sapped strength from the bunch, big
George still had to ride over the same mountains as everyone else.
Regardless of how much of a gap they had obtained, his job number one
was supporting Lance, and if there had been a reason, he would have done
everything short of riding backwards on the road to help. If anyone
deserves to climb atop the podium for a stage victory, George's years of
selfless attention to the team effort has certainly qualified him.

The longest stage on the Tour occurs on a fairly windy day with hot
temperatures greet the riders.

For the sprinter boys, big points are on the line in the Green Jersey
competition - 35, 30, 25 for the first three finishers. That might help
keep things animated.

156 riders begin today, but before too long, they are reduced by one -
T-Mobile rider Andreas Kloden abandons with a broken scaphoid bone in
his wrist. There had been a "silly" crash yesterday which was not
announced during the coverage, which put Kloden down onto his wrist.
Though he made it to the finish yesterday, the continued vibration was
too much today, and he fetched a seat in the team car.

Well, more than a rider or two got motivated today, as the peleton drags
along about 17:32 behind a break of 17 riders

008 - Chechu Rubiera - Discovery
009 - Paolo Salvodelli - Discovery
017 - Oscar Sevilla - T-Mobile
022 - Kurt-Asle Arvesen - CSC
053 - Erik Dekker - Rabobank
094 - Alan Davis - Liberty Seguros
105 - Sebastian Hinault - Credit Agricole
115 - Dario Cioni - Liquigas
122 - Stephane Auge - Cofidis
137 - Bram Tankink - Quick-Step
144 - Pierrick Fedrigo - Bougues Telecom (French National Champion)
157 - Daniele Righi - Lampre
174 - Carlos Da Cruz - FDJ.com
177 - Thomas Lovkvist - FDJ.com
185 - Andriy Grivko - Domina Vacanze
204 - Sammy Dumoulin - Ag2R
205 - Simons Gerrans -Ag2R

It's an iPod kinda day for the chasers, who ease up even more as they
roll through the feed zone and lose another minute and a half to the
breakaway. The gap more or less settles at the 20 minute mark. This
creates two conditions - first is the movement of Oscar Sevilla up to
16th place on the roadway, as his nearly 40 minute deficit to the Yellow
Jersey gets chopped in half. Second, with two team members in the break,
Discovery will position themselves as leader in the Team Competition.

Everyone enjoys the heat and the sun, spinning and dawdling along as
they pull the miles under their wheels. Armstrong dispatches the camera
moto up to George Hincapie, who blows kisses to his wife and child. The
peleton does everything but pull into a cafe to watch the stage on TV.

Of the boys in the front bunch, my money would be evenly split between
Dekker and Da Cruz. Dekker for his great tactical sense of when to mount
a telling attack and Da Cruz as he seems to have a constant hunger for
victory, if only at interim sprint points.

61 km to go, there's a 23 minute gap. That's about a 10 mile gap. Yep,
it's one of "those" stages.

The cameras find Euskatel-Euskatel's Inigo Landaluze, who decided to
increase ventilation on his shorts by leaving some of the material on
the roadway. Some silly crash put him on the ground out of view of the
cameras, but now they swarm on him to share the images of dermal abrasion.

Tashi the dog makes a strong breakaway. She moves strongly to the back
door moves smoothly through the yard, searching for stray cat food.
Satisfied that she has missed none, she agitates for a bowl of food.
Thus taken care of, she nestles into the couch looking extremely
comfortable.

In France about 20 km's later, Grivko, Damoulan, Savoldelli animate
suddenly on a slight incline. They assemble into a group of 8 riders and
move solidly away from the others. They gain a good 10 seconds.

As the difference moves out to 16 seconds, the gap seems too far for
Dekker to allow. The Rabobank rider fires away, but curiously may have
left things too late. His efforts are quickly marked by the others who
have suddenly become morose and vengeful, having missed the selection.

The eight press their gap to 20 seconds, assembling into a tightly
rotating paceline.

009 - Paolo Savoldelli - Discovery
017 - Oscar Sevilla - T-Mobile
022 - Kurt-Asle Arvesen - CSC
105 - Sebastian Hinault - Credit Agricole
137 - Bram Tankink - Quick-Step
157 - Daniele Righi - Lampre
185 - Andriy Grivko - Domina Vacanze
205 - Simons Gerrans -Ag2R

The octet moves away by a solid minute and a half. Before they hit the
finish, they will have to deal with a Cat 3 climb just after entering
the town of Revel.

In the main bunch, some Credit Agricolians move into the rotation at the
front, aware that 8 sprint points will remain for the winner of the
bunch sprint.

Riders in the lead break signal wildly to their team cars, tryiing to
get the last bottles on board before they hit the last 20 km's. Feeds
from the cars are generally not allowed once they head under that banner.

T-Mobile animates suddenly in the bunch, as a bean-counter with a
calculator radios ahead to let them know that if the gap is more than 19
minutes, they have given away the lead of the team competition.

Sprinter Thor Hushovd almost got caught out by a "level crossing" of a
railroad line - the gates coming down nearly on top of him, Janeck
Tomback of Cofidis and Jose Enrique Guiterrez from Phonak. They weave
and dart under the falling arms. However, the entire team array of team
and referee cars get caught behind the dropped gates, and wait drumming
their fingers while the train slides slowly past.

Landaluze remains well behind even the team cars, and may have a
difficult time not getting finishing within the time limit.

10 km to go for the front bunch. They have just hit the beginning of the
final climb. Even with T-Mobile's efforts, the gap has stretched to just
over 25 minutes. The big pink train sets a hard pace, and riders begin
to sweat a bit, but they really don't seem to be shutting down the gap.

On the climb, Tankink makes a fast move and gets a solo gap. Before he
gets too far out of sight, Grivko punches a counterattack. Hinault
follows his slipstream and then moves smartly past Tankink. Salvodelli
takes a page out of Armstrong's playbook, first waiting a long, long
time to see if anyone else will move across the gap. Just when it seems
like he's let it go too late, he moves strongly up the roadway. Shutting
down the distance, he swings past everyone and spurs an increase of pace
from Hinault, who can do little else but hold his wheel.

Which means there's nothing between Salvodelli and the finish line
except for a technical descent - not a bet you want to go against. But,
they only have abouut 6 seconds on Arveson and Gerrans, who have left
everyone else behind on the upper reaches of the climb.

Savoldelli spurs Hinault to the front as they hit the 5 km to go banner.
The Discovery rider may be worrying a bit too much about the other
rider, continually looking back at him when Hinault drops back again.
Probably, a good opportunity to learn some collequial terms in Italian.

Arveson streaks ahead of Gerrans, gapping him as they go downhill.
Gerrans dips a bit deeper into the toolbox, reattaching to the driving
CSC rider.

3 km to go, and two pair of riders each try to drive the other member of
the duointo doing more work. They will rapidly run out of roadway, and
may be missing the big picture of stage victory.

As they move between a stand of trees which puts them in the shadows,
Savoldelli hammers hard trying to dump Hinault at t 2km to go. A gap
appears just as Arveson attaches and follow the Italian rider. They
regroup and everyone begins to gesture at aech other.

Suddenly, Arvesen hits them and streaks up the roadway. Savoldelli waits
for a second or two while Gerrans decides he still wants to win a stage.
They may have dawdled just a bit too long as Arvesen gains a gap and
streaks up the edge of the road under the 1 km to go banner in a
tactically perfect move. Savoldelli ramps it up with Hinault matching
him - they squeeze down the gap with as they pull through a hard left
turn with 700 meters to go.

Hinault visibly seizes and throws a rod, suddenly pedaling in an odd
waltz-time St. Vitus dance. Savoldelli has shoots of flame coming out of
his nose as he does everything he can to regain the leading rider. He
slowly gains on Arvesen as the line gets ever closer. Suddenly, he's
clawed himself onto the wheel of the struggling Dane. Salvodelli doesn't
slow a wit and comes around him to take the stage! Another Discovery
victory! Savoldelli is swarmed at the finish, relishing his first Tour
stage win.

The rest of the break are littered behind him, limping in as the efforts
of the day combine with the exhaustion of the race.

Sammy Damoulin brings the middle bits of the break while behind them,
the two hapless FDJ.com riders sandwich in a group of four with Dekker
and Auge. They will roll over the line at 4:09, not contesting the
placings. FDJ.com might reread the big book of tactics, as having two
riders in a break should have let them slip at least one into the
ensuing moves. It's always easy to couch-coach, but someone wasn't
paying attention.

Many minutes behind, none other than Jan Ullrich leads the chase,
matched easily by Armstrong, while his teammate Popovych moves up around
them both to take over pacesetting. Someone's efforts have started this
off, forming a gap to the rest of the bunch - no surprise it is reported
to be Vinokourov. Polka-dotty Michael Rasmussen follows neatly, and is
matched by Basso. George Hincapie hangs quietly at the back of the
bunch, with Leipheimer, Mancebo, Vinokourov, Mazzoleni in attendance.
They've found a goodly gap on the climb and left behind to their own
devices are Floyd Landis and Cadel Evans, which means that if Vinokourov
can squeze 9 seconds, he'll get back up to 7th place.

The back of the bunch accordians and a crash occurs - a few riders who
are down in the classifications untangle themselves and shake their
scraped bits before regaining their machines.

Up front, Hincapie now takes over driving the pace, swapping pulls with
Popovych with 3 km to go. Under the 1 km to go banner, Armstrong notches
up the power and drives the pace. Popovych forms a leadout train and
they chug along to maximize their gap.

The men most affected by the breakup, Christophe Moreau, Evans, Landis
drive to the line, bring the bunch at 19 seconds behind the Armstrong
bunch. That'll shuffle Vinokourov up a couple notches.

On the podium after Paolo Savoldelli enjoys the kisses and champagne,
Lance Armstrong pulls on his 79th Yellow Jersey, moving him officially
beyond Bernard Hinault, who shakes his hand as he moves to greet the
guests of honor on the podium.

Stage 17 -
1 - Paolo Savoldelli - Discovery - 5:41:19
2 - Kurt-Asle Arvesen - CSC - s.t.
3 - Simons Gerrans -Ag2R - +:08
4 - Sebastian Hinault - Credit Agricole - +:11
5 - Andriy Grivko - Domina Vacanze - s.t.
6 - Oscar Sevilla - T-Mobile - +:51
7 - Bram Tankink - Quick-Step - s.t.
8 - Daniele Righi - Lampre - s.t.

General Classification - After 17 Stages -
MJ - Lance Armstrong - 72:55:50
2 - Ivan Basso - CSC - +2:46
3 - Michael Rasmussen - Rabobank - +3:09
4 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - +5:58
5 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - +6:31
6 - Levi Leipheimer - Gerolsteiner - +7:35
7 - Alexandre Vinokourov - T-Mobile - +9:38
8 - Cadel Evans - Lotto - +9:49
8 - Floyd Landis - Phonak - +9:53
10 - Christoph Moreau - Credit Agricole - +12:07

Tomorrow's Stage -
Stage 18 - Albi - Mende 189 km
A bit of a sting in the tail of this stage. After making the riders a
bit grumpy with a steadily uphill start, the course finds a couple of
climbs in the Massif Centrale, then punches uphill on the Cat2 climb of
Cote de Boyne, a 10 km climb which brings the riders up onto an
undulating plateau. But this is where everyone needs to pay attention -
within 20 km of the finish comes the Cote de Chabrits, a sharp little
climb and then the finishing climb of teh Cote de la Croix-Neuve, a 3 km
gut-punch of 10%. If Armstrong want to win a road stage this year, this
could be the one.


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