Tour de France Daily Updates

Nearly daily updates on the biggest bike race in the world!!! Read about the adventures of the hard men going for the finish of the biggest race in the world. Glory to the victor!!! And about 400 Euros too....  Just click the "continue reading" link button and read more (if that's not obvious enough from the phrasing of continue reading).. Updated through stage 16.

STAGE 16

So what's up with this pressure thing? Seems some people thrive on it while others crumble. We've seen in many times in the tour (TIOOYK). Some riders can sustain through everything year after year. Others can't seem to maintain even when the race seems to be handing them a gift - they appear to be giving it right back with a great big "no thank you". And so it is again this year with our erstwhile leader.

Yes, in stage 15 he took his comfortable lead and crumbled under the pressure by shooting up the L'Alpe d'Huez figuratively climbing off the podium. And in Stage 16, probably depressed by his loss in status, he climbed off his bike and went home. Yes, our leader for so many stages, Sebastien Joly quite the tour.

Other than that, only a couple of non-contenders got any time and those didn't gain much. All the real contenders marked each other and took 44'01" our of stage DFL Michael Rasmussen (plus his 20 second time penalty for being worst rider on the day).

So the standings after stage 16:
1) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL 77h43'36"
2) Gert Steegmans       DVL-BEL @ 41"
3) Jimmy Casper COF-FRA @ 3'48"
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147) Oscar Sio Pereiro  CEI-ESP @ 3h05'31"

STAGE 15

Worst to first!!! Well, on stage standings he did it. Oscar Freire, twice worst rider on the day, twice collecting 20 second time penalties for riding to fast was the best placed rider on the day by out "sprinting" breakaway companion Christophe le Mevel. This pair was 17" ahead (in arrears) to Sebastien Hinault. Jimmy Casper was fourth taking a few seconds from Stephane Auge. And so it went with Thor Hushovd taking time from the leading bunch.

The bunch was lead in by Aitor Hernandez who fought to limit his losses to Freire to 2'11". Hernandez was accompanied by notables such as Gert Steegmans and Wim Vansevenant. But notably absent from all the action was Sebastien Joly. Joly completely missed all the moves and lost huge time - 21'31" to Freire and 16'20" to the Vansevenant group.

So much for Joly's big lead as he plummets right off the podium. But it's a good day for the Belgians on Davitomon-Lotto as they now control the first 2 spots on the leader board. This will allow them to respond to any attack without having to commit both riders to the chase. Meanwhile Floyd Landis takes over the yellow shirt of shame as the USA appears to be in strong contention to make it a demoralizing rererererererepeat - or is that a (re)^7-peat....

Standings after Stage 15:
1) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL 71h23'31"
2) Gert Steegmans       DVL-BEL @ 41"
3) Jimmy Casper COF-FRA @ 3'48"
4) Aitor Hernandez      EUS-ESP @ 7'45"
5) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA @ 10'44"
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152) Floyd Landis       PHO-USA @ 2h23'26"

STAGE 14

Stage 14 looked to be a relatively quiet day before the final rest day. But then the attacks started early and often. Of course there was no coverage so I'll have to make up what happened - as if that's any different than other days....

First off we have to say good bye to big Magnus Backstedt. Yes, our 90kg hopeful decided that he was to far back and even with the Alps looming, he just couldn't get enough time back. Of course Backstedt has only finished one TdF so perhaps he just can't handle the pressure of being in contention in the big races.

Meanwhile up the road, Rik Verbrugghe and David Canada decided to pack it in as well. So Canada sat down on the guard rail while Verbrugghe went over to lay down in the ditch for a bit of rest. Combined with Celestino's withdrawal, we're now down to 156 riders of which 6-10 have any real chance of success in Paris.

Backstedt's departure should have opened the door for Filippo Pozzato, Anthony Charteau, Daniele Righi, and Aitor Hernandez to chase the last podium spot going into the rest day. They were the next 4 riders in the overall with Pozzato holding a slim 3 second advantage over Charteau. But the true champions are the ones that can follow the attacks and take advantage of their opponents weaknesses. And the attacks of the day would tell the difference.

The biggest attack of the day came from Phillipe Gilbert who started the day 53rd at 40'27". Although a Belgian, he rides for a French team and was out to get some glory for his sponsor. Gilbert was chased by Gert Steegmans who also is Belgian but Steegmans is working on a high overall place as he started the day in 9th @ 21'25". Steegmans lost 9'57" to Gilbert by the stage end, but Sebastien Joly lost 15'05" thus allowing Steegmans to close the time gap somewhat. Despite this lose to Steegmans, Joly opened up some extra time as Wim Vansevenant completely missed the big moves and lost 8'02. Jimmy Casper did well to stay within 46" of the leaders groupetto while Hernandez, Righi et al were loosing 4 or 5 minutes each.

All this action left Joly in first and Vansevenant 2nd, but Gert Steegmans jumps into 3rd less than one minute behind his teammate. Meanwhile Jimmy Casper jumps into 4th while Phillipe Gilbert does a big move into 17th. With another day like today, Gilbert will easily crack the top ten.

At the back of the bunch, there are now 16 riders over 2 hours behind in the overall standings. That's two hours of training that they've missed compared to Joly. With tomorrow being a rest day, perhaps they can take the opportunity to make up that extra training time that they so obviously lack.

Standings after Stage 14:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 66h12'34"
2) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL @ 15'36"
3) Gert Steegmans       DVL-BEL @ 16'17"
4) Jimmy Casper COF-FRA @ 20'43"
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156) Oscar Pereiro      CEI-ESP @ 2h07'30"

STAGE13

Well I guess the number 13 is just unlucky this year because on the 13th stage almost nothing happened. 230 km of racing and only two riders, Nicolas Jalabert and Robby Hunter, gained time on the peleton. And they only got 1'03". Sure there were those also rans (or is that also rodes???) that lost nearly half an hour. Sure the yellow shirt of shame changed hands for a day or three. But in the real race nothing noteworthy happened.

Standings after Stage 13:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 61h41'13"
2) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL @ 7'34"
3) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 12'10"
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160) Oscar Pereiro      CEI     ESP @   1h50'37"

STAGE 12

The attacks started early and just kept firing for the first hour or so until things settled down. Everything seemed tightly controlled through the middle miles making it look like a typical flat stage. Then suddenly with about 35km to go, 9 or 10 riders shot out the back in a hard attack - quite unusual for a quiet flat stage to see such a large group going clear with no apparent pressure to chase. The biggest name in the group was Sebastien Joly with fellow Frenchman and FDJ teammate Sandy Casar in tow. Obviously Casar was there to help his teammates chances at gaining maximum time.

Missing from the break were all the other highly placed riders. Finally, as the peleton entered the finishing town, others realized that they were loosing big time. Although they took time from the peleton and stage DFL Yarislav Popovych, it was to late to control the damage on GC. So we have Aitor Hernandez loosing 6'36", Anthony Charteau loosing 6'54", Magnus Backstedt loosing 7'13", and Wim Vansevenant and Fillipo Pozzato both loosing 7'42". So this jumped Joly back into overall leadership while Pozzato holds less than a one minute lead over Hernandez in the young rider category. And not only did Joly take over leadership of the race on Bastille day, he also took the stage honors. Quite the double on the French national holiday don't you think?

Tomorrow is another flat stage. Will the lead change again? With fatigue setting in, can any of these riders maintain their form and not allow the big attack to go away. Or will they make the big attack that's so massive that the race director kicks them out for being to good? Well, that last one is more likely once the race hits the mountains.

Standings after Stage 12
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 55h46'38"
2) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL @ 7'34"
3) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 12'10"
4) Fillipo Pozzato      QSI-ITA @ 16'29"
5) Anthony Charteau     CA-FRA  @ 16'32"
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160) Floyd Landis       PHO-USA @ 1h49'08"

STAGE 11

The attacks started early. Most noticeable on the OLN coverage was Iban Mayo trying desperately to ride himself back into contention. A group of riders higher up the Tourmalet was chasing to garb Iban's wheel but the guy in orange (at least it's not butt ugly dead cow head burnt orange) would let anyone catch him. In the end though the pressure of attacking had left Mayo so depressed that he got mad at the camera carrying motor bike and quit the race in a huff.

By this time, a large group had formed in the chase containing many of the race favorites. Notable in his absence was the race leader Sebastien Joly. I'm certain that Joly intended to chase hard, but the group was to large to be caught - 36 riders in all. In fact, Joly missed the second group of 20 riders as well which contained notables such as Daniele Righi, Fillipo Pozzato, and Sebastian Hinault. Ultimately on the final climb, Christophe Mengin was able to give France it's pre-Bastille day glory by grabbing the stage win by 1'53" over the leading group.

The second group on the road lost 5'41" to Mengin (3'48" to the 'lead' group) while the Joly group (sorry, I couldn't think of a good pun for that one) lost 6'26". This gave the overall race leadership to Wim Vansevenant by 8 seconds. Meanwhile, in an act of symmetry, at the wrong end of the race France was loosing the yellow shirt of shame by 8 seconds as well. Of course that was because Floyd Landis was given an 8 second time penalty at the end while loosing 46'13" to Mengin.

So the standings after stage 11:
1) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL 50h59'41"
2) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA @ 8"
3) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 5'07"
4) Fillipo Pozzato      QSI-ITA @ 8'55"
5) Daniele Righi        LAM-ITA @ 9'29"
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165) Floyd Landis       PHO-USA @ 1h41'34"

STAGE 10

It promised to be an interesting day. The first day in the mountains might just show who's in contention and who isn't. But it wasn't to be....

Well, we did loose yesterday's hero Jimmy Engoulvent. He abandoned early today after showing some brilliant form yesterday. It must have been the lead of Laurent Brochard who was a non-starter today that planted the idea of abandoning as Engoulvent was to far back to be a threat anyway.

Other than that, there were lots of attacks on the early climbs, but everyone came together in the end. Isaac Galvez took the stage honors to get his first (and only???) mention in this year's write up as he brought in a group of 55 riders. Of course there were some big losers like Juan Mercado (stage DFL) and Cyril Dessel who now must wear the yellow shirt of shame, but there really wasn't any real change in the leader board. Of course that doesn't count the fact that we now have 55 riders over one hour down in the overall - the first time this tour that anyone has been over an hour down.... Or maybe we could take the other news that France now brackets the field but that's reaching for something to report.

Perhaps tomorrow will deliver on it's promise to be a more decisive stage.

So that standings after stage 10:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 44h17'21"
2) Anthony Chareau      CA-FRA  @ 7'38"
3) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL @ 8'25"
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168) Cyril Dessel       A2R-FRA @ 1h10'16

STAGE 9

Today cyclingnews.com had a "news" item about time gaps in the peleton. They talked about the contenders needing to be careful or they'd loose a few precious seconds. They talked about how Leipheimer is now over 6 minutes down. But we know better because today we had a couple of riders take more time than that in just the last 15km of the stage!!!

First to attack today was Jimmy Engoulvent who launched off through the peleton with 15km to go. He even got some camera time on OLN as he rolled away from the group. But then a handful of riders decided that Engoulvent was just taking to much time so they sat down on the course in protest. Most of these riders were eventually sucked back into the peleton despite themselves, but Daniele Righi was able to overcome the draw of the group and pass Engoulvent for the stage win.

After Righi and Engoulvent, the attacks came fast and furious as riders such as Sebastien Joly came out to defend his position (eventually limiting his daily deficit to Righi & Engoulvent to 1'47"). Also chasing hard was Wim Vansevenant at 2'29" as he too was working to maintain his overall placing. Other highly placed or hopeful riders also chased in the closing kilometers such as Anthony Charteau @ 4'23 and Stephane Auge @ 5'31" (although Auge was penalized 8 seconds at the intermediate sprints on the day).

Most interesting might have been Levi Leipheimer who finished 12th on the day. However, the commissars stated that crashing at the end to gain time is strictly against the rules. Therefore Leipheimer was stuck with the time of the riders he had been with and thus lost 5'52" to the leader, Sebastien Joly.

So the results after stage 9 with mountains looming in the next few days:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA
2) Anthony Charteau     CA-FRA  @ 7'38"
3) Wim Vansevenant      DVL=BEL @ 8'25"
4) Aitor Hernandez      EUS-ESP @ 12'41"
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70) Sergiy Honchar      TMO-URK @ 49'30"

STAGE 8

Well another late report. But it's a rest day in the tour so no worries on getting behind. Besides the news was pretty sparse. Daniele Righi was the only rider on the attack today and his efforts netted all of 55 seconds.

On the other extreme, Sylvain Calzoti lost quite a bit of time. He was 2'15 out of contention at the finish which meant that he picked up the dreaded 20 second time penalty plus another 4 second penalty at Locmalo (km 112). So in all, Calzoti gave up 2'39" on the overall in one single flat stage. Of course Calzoti wasn't really a contender but his performance sent him plummeting in the standings from 93rd after stage 7 to 134th (tied on time with Egoi Martinez and Georg Totsching). Boy it must be tough to loose 40 places in one day....

So in the way of a rest day summary (we're supposed to do those aren't we???), I'll start off by stating that Sebastien Joly has a pretty solid lead. Given his track record, he should be able to maintain at least into the Pyrenees and with some diligence, perhaps even into Paris. But if Joly makes a mistake in not following the groupetto, there's quite a crowd of riders that are tightly packed immediately behind.

In the young rider competition, our first two riders are Aitor Hernandez and Filippo Pozzato who are showing their strength by holding 3rd and 6th respectively in the overall standings.

In the team competition, wild card team Agritubal is holding a slim 10 second gap over Credit Agricole. Even worse for a big budget team is T-Mobile. They realized that they were going to loose big time in the team competition before the race even began so they "suspended" a couple of riders that would hurt their chances. And what came of that you might ask? Well, they still are the last place team at 16'38" behind Agritubal thus having to wear the florescent numbers of warning. And to make matters worse, one of their riders is the DFL and has to wear the yellow shirt of shame while they have three other riders in the bottom 6 and Mathias Kessler flirting with entering the bottom 10. Maybe they should have suspended more guys or considered bringing in the "B" team....

Standings after Stage 8:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 35h22'18"
2) Anthony Carteau      CA-FRA  @ 5'02"
3) Aitor Hernandez      EUS-ESP @ 7'02"
4) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 7'27"
5) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL @ 7'48"
6) Filippo Pozzato      QSI-ITA @ 7'53"
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170) Sergie Honchar     TMO-UKR @ 43'25"

STAGE7

The stage 7 time trial went to Jens Voight who was obviously throwing a fake move at the podium as he'll ride much to fast on some of the transition stages. But Voight was followed by potential contender Peter Wrolich @ 14", Beat Zberg @ 59", Wim Vansevenant @ 1'06", Matteo Tosatto @ 1'11" and so on through the list of favorites.

So Stage 7 didn't affect the top spot but there was some shuffling of the riders behind. In fact, Joly took over a minute out of the second place rider, Anthony Charteau. But one of the biggest moves came from Aitor Hernandez who leap frogged from 5th into third on the same overall time as 2nd place Anthony Charteau!!! Quite an impressive display of TT skill to make up that much time.

Meanwhile at the other end of the field, Sergie Honchar, Floyd Landis, Michael Rogers, etc rode themselves right out of contention. In fact, Honchar, who's name is sometimes transliterated as Gonchar, is now nearly three quarters of an hour behind. But the surprising part was that the top American was Levi Leipheimer who lost only 3'55" while the other cellar dwellers were losing more than 7 minutes each (with Honchar in the DFL spot at 10'01" on the day). It's to little to late though for Mr. Leipheimer as he started the day over 1/2 hour behind in the standings.

Standings after stage 7:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 31h6'45"
2) Anthony Charteau     CA-FRA  @ 5'02"
3) Aitor Hernandez      EUS-ESP @ s.t.
4) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 7'27"
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170) Sergie Honchar     TMO-UKR @43'25"

STAGE 6

The stage proved to be yet another chance for contenders to attach late. Many tried with the most successful being Frenchman Anthony Charteau of the Credit Agricol team. Trying to protect their positions, a group of five men went on the chase - Johan Vansummeren, Magnus Backstedt, Daniele Righi, Bram de Groot, and Bram Tankink held their loses to 2'35". Meanwhile Wim Vansevenant lost 3'04" to Charteau with Sebastien Joly at 3'30". All this wasn't enough as Charteau jumped into second overall giving the home boys the first two spots on the podium

The main bunch limited their losses to 4'47" except of course Robbie McEwen picked up his third 20 second time penalty of the tour. And so ended the final road stage before the first big ITT. The time trial shouldn't upset the top spot but with only a few seconds between 2nd and 3rd (or between 6th and 7th) there could be some shuffling behind.

Standings after Stage 6:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 29h57'26"
2) Anthony Charteau     CA-FRA  @ 3'53"
3) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 4'06"
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171) Tom Boonen QSI-BEL @ 36'26"

STAGE 5

If you watched today's tour coverage on OLN, you'd think that not much happened except a bunch of guys lying around on the job late in the race to get some time. And you'd be partially right - a bunch of guys did lie down on the job. I saw a bunch of guys on the ground near the end like Egoi Martinez of Discovery but then he was probably just trying to get back the time penalties that he picked up yesterday. And he succeeded by securely getting out of the bottom 10.

But what of the big moves? OLN didn't show David de la Fuente taking flight and grabbing 13'48" from stage loser Oscar Friere. Nor did they show perennial favorite Sebastien Joly chasing hard (or is it hardly chasing???) to hold his time lose to de la Fuente to 1'05". And what of Wim Vansevenant, Daniele Righi, Julian Dean, Victor Hugo Pena, and Johan Vansummeren - well they did show Vansummeren on the deck relaxing to limit his loss to de la Fuente by a couple of minutes....

And don't forget Samuel Dumoulin and Bjorn Schroder. They spent almost all day off the wrong end of they peleton. But that didn't get to them, when the peleton came back to them, these two attached and gained 3'10" on the bunch in about 5 km. Good work men - well, good work except for those multiple 6" and 4" time penalties you picked up along the way today.

So where does that leave us? Well, Joly leap frogs into first while DFL Boonen not only loses time on the road but picks up a 12" time penalty at the finish. And stage leader de la Fuente vaults into 6th in the overall closing the gap to less than 9 minutes.

Standings after Stage 5:
1) Sebastien Joly       FDJ-FRA 25h45'52"
2) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE @ 4'57"
3) Filippo Pozzato      QSI-ITA @ 6'04"
4) Aitor Hernandez      EUS-ESP @ 6'54"
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172) Tom Boonen QSI-BEL @ 35'01"

STAGE 4

As is typical of a flat early stage, several riders went out the wrong end of the peleton for a day of training. Yes, they feel they need more training than they can get sitting comfortably in the bunch. So off they go to "break wind" in a small group.

And when the sprinters' teams come to chase them down, the men decide that they really don't want to be in the group after all and go off to the attack!!! Such was the case today with Bradley Wiggens and Cedric Coutouly. Unfortunately they were beaten to the punch by Aitor Hernandez who had set off in search of glory. All these attacks brought out more boys that wanted to play including Sebastien Joly, Daniele Righi, Wim Vansevenant, Magnus Backstedt, and even Erik Zabel (feigning a flat tire...but he got scored at the same time as the stage loser Robbie McEwen even though he placed 7th on the stage).

In the end Hernandez held off the late chargers with 12" to Wiggins, 41" to Coutouly, 45" to Joly and Julian Dean (who was actually scored at 3'06" due to his lying down in the middle of the road at 200m to go), . . . and 3'06" (plus a 20" time penalty) to stage loser Robbie McEwen. Tom Boonen finished in the same time as McEwen (albeit without the time penalty) to become the first rider in this years tour to hold onto the DFL position for two consecutive days.

However, Magnus Backstedt was able to grab enough time to over come Filippo Pozzato for first while Hernandez closed the gap on the leading pair. Backstedt's displacement of Pozzato means that Quick Step no longer has the field flanked. As a consolation prize, Pozzato still leads Hernandez in the young rider competition which should help with the team's stigma of carrying the yellow t-shirt around France. Other than these slight movements, the overall didn't undergo any large shack ups as the French retained 4th thru 7th. This should be the typical pattern until we reach the ITT this weekend although really the big time in this race occurs in the mountains.

So the standings after Stage 4:
1) Magnus Backstedt     LIQ-SWE  20h21'22"
2) Filippo Pozzato            QSI-ITA  @ 24"
3) Aitor Hernandez         EUS-ESP  @ 1'14"
4) Jimmy Casper              COF-FRA @ 4'48"
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172) Tom Boonen            QSI-BEL  @ 29'09"

STAGE 3

Today's stage with it's collection of hills, both categorized and uncategorized, in the second half of the day opened up the roads for the contenders to come out and play. Of course we'll also see some pretenders as riders without the fortitude to arrive in Paris show us the fatigue in their legs. Those will be culled out in the coming week. But for now we can look at any attack as a shot at the overall.

And today the big attack came as Fillipo Pozzato and Magnus Backstedt exploded on the climbs. They were chased by Jimmy Casper, riding for the honor for France, but he came up 3'52" short of catching the dynamic duo. Next up the road was a group of four containing French hope Sebastien Joly at 6'25". Other well placed riders chasing included favorite Stephane Auge and the well placed Aitor Hernandez at 7'50". And of course the yellow jersey group lost over 18 minutes.

The most improved rider on the day was Stuart O'Grady who went from 168th at 13'57" to 16th at 17'04". Goes to show what can happen when you stay near the leaders on the road. Of course O'Grady may turn out to be a pretender to the thrown (no, I didn't misspell that) as he is reportedly suffering from a cracked vertebra.

Of note is that France is deep in the hunt for honors in it's home tour. French riders now hold 4 of the top 7 positions albeit not a podium spot yet. They also have Auge and Nicolas Portal hovering just over the horizon in 11th and 12th respectively. Look for a strong showing as these riders look to enhance the national reputation once the tour returns to France.

Standings after Stage 3:
1)  Fillipo Pozzato           QSI-ITA    15h20'17"
2)  Magnus Backstedt    LIQ-SWE  @ 28"
3)  Aitor Hernandez        EUS-ESP   @ 3'56"
4)  Jimmy Casper             COF-FRA  @ 4'24"
5)  Anthony Charteau    CA-FRA    @ 6'34"
6)  Jimmy Engoulvent    CA-FRA    @ 6'41"
7)  Sebastien Joly           FDJ-FRA   @ 9'00"
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172)  Tom Boonen        QSI-BEL       @ 28'45"

STAGE 2

Today's stage saw our first abandon as erstwhile leader Danilo di Luca crumbled under the pressure of leading the standings and refused to start. The rumor from the International Enquirer was that he was suffering from a fever and swollen prostate. However these guys are all to young to be having prostate issues yet so it must just be a ruse.

But di Luca's abandon, combined with a few hills at the end of the stage, did open the doors for many riders. The rider who took most advantage of the situation was Aitor Hernandez. He spent a large part of the day off the wrong end of the peleton burning off excess energy. Then as the finishing hills hit, Hernandez put in his big attack. Others chased but had responded to late to catch the Spanish rider. Fillipo Pozzato came in second on the day at 3'46" with a group of big gravity men at 4'09". This chase group at 4'09" contained contenders Wim Vansevenant, Jimmy Casper, and Wilfried Cretskens. Magnus Backstedt the most gravitationally enhanced rider in the race at 90kg (in England that's something like 14 stone and 2) was also in the first chase group.

Other riders of note that chased Hernandez at the end include Erik Dekker and Johan Vansummeren @ 4'55" and Sebastien Joly, Brad Wiggins, Matteo Tosatto, and Daniele Righi at 6'28". Of course the big loser on the day was Thor Hushovd who not only lost 13'23" at the finish but was penalized 2" (twice!!!) on the course and a further 8" at the finish. This means that even with di Luca's abandon, Hushovd has leapt past George Hincappie and stayed in his 175th position - but now the current cellar spot. So the guy named after a thunder god must now wear the yellow rag of shame for tomorrow's stage.

So the standings after stage 2:
1)  Aitor Hernandez        EUS-ESP    10h07'32"
2)  Wim Vansevenant     DVL-BEL   @ 2'39"
3)  Wilfried Cretskens     QSI-BEL    @ 3'03"
4)  Filippo Pozzato           QSI-ITA    @ 3'54"
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175) Thor Hushovd         CA-NOR    @ 14'13"

STAGE 1

The opening stage was relatively flat thus giving our contenders a bit of a break. But what's this? Yes, several of them were in a break off the wrong end of the field!!! What's up with that? Portal, Wegman, Etxebarria all fighting for virtual last place at times being 5 minutes out of contention. Fortunately they came back to the bunch after ridding themselves of the excess energy. This should pay dividends in the last week of the race as the missing energy will allow them to go out on attack in the correct direction during the closing stages of the race.

And speaking of attacking the correct end of the peleton, the big move of the day came with 4km to go as an unknown (in this competition) went on the attack. Yes, Danilo di Luca was the first attacker of the tour. Only one contender was sharp enough to see the move as Stephane Auge chased. Coming into the stage, Auge had an 18" advantage over di Luca. In the closing kilometer, Robbie McEwen's lead out man Wim Vansevenant attacked the peleton but it was to little to late. Danilo di Luca took the stage honors with Auge holding his loses to 21" while Vansevenant lost 1'09". However Auge and Vansevenant are probably not worried about di Luca as the Italian lacks the gravity muscle necessary to hold top honors all the way to Paris.

The main field lost 2'29". This causes our standings to shack up a bit - not unusual in the first week of a Grand Tour. Now for the sad news, the USA has yet again taken over the DFL position. After all these years of Lance Armstrong, we thought his retirement would have saved us. But no, we have another American in last place.

Standings after Stage 1:
1) Danilo di Luca             LIQ-ITA      4h21'28"
2) Stephane Auge           COF-FRA    @ 3"
3) Wim Vansevenant      DVL-BEL     @ 1'03"
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176) George Hincappie   DSC-USA  @ 3'13

INTRODUCTION AND PROLOGUE "STAGE"

So to start with, we know that there would be changes after last year. After all the ultimate big time loser and local boy Lance Armstrong threw in the towel after seven straight DFL performances. His best (if you want to call it that) performance was perhaps in 2003 when he came within 61 seconds of overtaking Jan Ullrich and  4:14 of overtaking Alexandre Vinokourov. All in all, not a very auspicious career in France leading the International Enquirer to quote him as having said "I guess I just trained to much and rode to fast".

And speaking of Ullrich and Vino, it looked like they would once again be battling it out for the cellar along with the likes of Ivan Basso and a few Spanish non-contenders. But the battle for the cellar was turned upside down as all these riders abandoned before the racing even began!!! The International Enquirer quoted Ullrich as saying "My beer belly just vasn't grosse enough to compete - I vas going to be vay to fast in zee mountains and in zee timer trials alzo, ja."

But now to the race at hand. Last year numbero uno, Iker Flores, is a non-starter as well. No word from Euskaltel-Euskadi on why but my guess is that he couldn't handle the pressure of the repeat although the International Enquirer wrote that he was abducted by space aliens. That leaves last years runner up, Wim Vansevenant as the favorite out of the start house. Other returning riders include Unai Etxebarria (6th last year at 20'00" but only 9'01" from Vansevenant), Vicente Garcia Acosta (8th at 23'50") and Peter Wrolich (10th at 28'34")

So what on today's opening stage? Well Floyd Landis tried to steal a page out of Pedro Delgado's book by showing up late for his start so as to steal a few days of early glory before tumbling down the standings. But it didn't work as Floyd was only 7-8 seconds late for his start where Delgado was able to grab a couple of minutes. Other than that, it was a fairly ho-hum race with Fabian Wegman leading at the time check 9 seconds ahead of Nicolas Portal and 14 seconds up on Ruben Lobato. But in the second half, the true prologue riders came out and Lobato was able to take the victory by 3 seconds over Wegman and 6 seconds over Manuel Calvente. Portal was able to close back 3 seconds on Wegman but was overtaken by a charging Stephane Auge (one of our perennial favorites.

From last years top 10, the best placed was Peter Wrolich in 8th at 14" while Wim Vansevenant is 18th at 22". And luckily for the Discovery (nee USPS) boys, after 7 years of dragging around the DFL rider like an albatross around their necks, they avoided the cellar in the opening when George Hincappie narrowly beat Thor Hushovd by only 0.73". So the standings after the prologue:

1)  Ruben Lobato           SDV-ESP        9'27"
2)  Fabian Wegman       GST-GER      @ 3"
3)  Manuel Calvente     AGR-ESP      @ 6"
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176) Thor Hushovd       CA-NOR     @ 1'10"