Tour De France July 3 -25

[pels]

Tour De France starts this Saturday, one of the great sporting events to watch.
These blokes are crazy and are true warriors.
Every stage live on SBS starting Sunday morning at 1ish and then every night from about 10pm.

Alberto Contador (Astana) is a massive favorite, the contenders are
Andy & Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank) , Ivan Basso (Liquigas) , Denis Menchov (Rabobank), Lance Armstrong (RadioShack), Bradley Wiggins (Sky), Carlos Sastre (Cervelo TestTeam), Cadel Evans (BMC), Michael Rogers (HTC-Columbia).

If Cadel Evans had a decent team he could give it a big shake but I doubt it.
I watched a lot of the Giro and his team is basically not up to the standard of Astana, Saxo Bank, Liqiuigas or Radioshack

Key stages to watch are

Stage 3 - July 6 13km of Cobblestones makes it very interesting
Stage 7 - July 10 Mid Mountains
Stage 8 - July 11 High Mountains
Stage 9 - July 13 Mid Mountains
Stage 14 - July 18 High Mountains
Stage 15 - July 19 High Mountains
Stage16 - July 20 Mid Mountains
Stage 17 - July 22 High mountains Queen stage of the tour
Stage 19 - July 24 Individual Time Trial

[PLETTONIC]

Cadel's team will be alot stronger in the tour. for the giro he didnt have Hincapie, Ballan, Moribito, Santambrogio, Burghardt and Kroon. All these will make Cadel a real contender. Rogers is the other one to look out for, he is climbing well this season and with half the team dedicated to him expect a strong showing.
Of the others Ivan Basso will be a chance of backing up his Giro win, Contador and Armstrong will be at each others throats, the Schlek brothers love the high mountains and i think Van Den Broek from Cadel's old team will cause a few headaches for the top guys too.

[pels]

Cancellara won the prologue this morning.
The 1st real stage is tonight

[pels]

Here is the top 30 after the prologue

1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 0:10:00
2 Tony Martin (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia 0:00:10
3 David Millar (GBr) Garmin – Transitions 0:00:20
4 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack 0:00:22
5 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team 0:00:23
6 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:00:27
7 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions 0:00:28
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Team Radioshack
9 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Professional Team 0:00:32
10 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram 0:00:35
11 Brent Bookwalter (USA) BMC Racing Team
12 Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini
13 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Team Radioshack
14 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team HTC - Columbia
15 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 0:00:36
16 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Team Milram
17 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team Radioshack
18 Vasili Kiryienka (Blr) Caisse d'Epargne 0:00:38
19 Alexander Vinokourov (Kaz) Astana
20 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas-Doimo
21 Robert Hunter (RSA) Garmin - Transitions 0:00:39
22 Luis León Sánchez Gil (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne
23 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team
24 Andriy Grivko (Ukr) Astana 0:00:40
25 David Zabriskie (USA) Garmin - Transitions
26 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha
27 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 0:00:41
28 Steve Morabito (Swi) BMC Racing Team
29 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team HTC - Columbia
30 Kristjan Koren (Slo) Liquigas-Doimo 0:00:42

If anyone wants more info here is a couple of great websites
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/97th-tour-de-france-gt
http://www.letour.fr/indexus.html

[pels]

Crazy stage last night with loads of crashes especially at the end with Petacchi winning the sprint from about 20 riders who had escaped the crashes, Mark Renshaw from Aus finished 2nd
No change in times to the overall classification from yesterday

[mickey]

The end of last nites stage was 1 of the craziest ends to a race ive seen... the ammount of big stacks was amazing

I bet there are a few relieved riders thanking the last 3km rule

[mickey]

Crashs galore again on the decent tonite, Slippery roads in the forest is causing havoc

[devilsadvocate]

Crashs galore again on the decent tonite, Slippery roads in the forest is causing havoc

That was unbelievable.
Lots of stacks along the way, but the crash at the bottom of the decent was huge.

[Squawk]

Wimbledon, Formula 1, Cricket, AFL, SANFL, World Cup and now TDF. There must be a pill you can take that gives you an instant 6 hours of sleep because with a 3 month old, I just cant squeeze it all in anymore.

I LOVE the TDF but will just have to pick out some choice stages so thanks for the condensed highlights package in post 1 Pels!

[mickey]

Sleep is over rated squawk.....
Its much easier now that the world cup is down to a game a week though

3 month olds are nothing.. my 2 girls slept through from about 8 weeks.... not that helps u out

[Squawk]

Sleep is over rated squawk.....
Its much easier now that the world cup is down to a game a week though

3 month olds are nothing.. my 2 girls slept through from about 8 weeks.... not that helps u out

LOL

I'm pretty good at surviving on 5-6 hours sleep during the week as long as I can catch up on the weekend, and that's where I'm getting found out.... The other thing is that with all the extra "baby" jobs to be done now, it means less time to do normal things and then less time to fit in all these events. I think I'll just have to wait (forever) until my long service leave hits 52 weeks and then take it all at once and go on a nocturnal quest of up all night watching sport, sleep all morning and then off to footy training and games

[Mop Up]

Severe lack of sleep over here too!!

Was gonna turn off early last night but what a stage, couldnt look away for one second. Few key moments...

Frank Schleck goes down on the cobbles and is out, massive blow for his bro Andy. Takes away the real teamwork advantage they were to have in the alps.
Armstrong gets a flat, loses a good minute bcos of it, ends the stage losing a bit of time to both Contador and Evans.
Evans a magnificent ride, his mountain biking background clearly helped over the cobbles, was able to let Cancellara and Schlek do most of the work, helped a tad, to gain a minute in time over Contador.

Should be a stage for the sprinters tonight, would be very hard to go past Cav tonight. Clearly fastest man in the pelton and HTC will be fired up to get him on the board.

[Squawk]

Cadel's wife sent out the following twitter, which Cadel has since sent out himself.

ChiaraPasserini Ok girls, Bra Free Day has officially started! just make sure u don't go into air conditioned rooms or where it's too cold.....he he ;o)
So the coverage of Le Tour could be interesting tonight

[mickey]

Australian Cadel Evans took possession of the race leader's yellow jersey after the Tour de France's eighth stage, which was won by Luxembourg's Andy Schleck.

Monday is the race's first rest day, while Tuesday's eighth stage from Morzine to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is arguably the hardest in the Alps.

It features five climbs, including four mountain passes, for a total of 66.1km of racing uphill - 25.5km of which will be over the Col de la Madeleine whose summit is 32km from the downhill finish line.


http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2010/

[devilsadvocate]

Cadel basically blew his chances of winning the tour overnight. EDIT - I didn't realise, but he actually fractured his elbow the previous day. Kudos for riding on with a busted arm.

When the breakaway group made their move, Cadel dropped off the back and never got back into contention.

Great ride by the Saxo Bank boys. That's how a team does it.

Mick Rodgers is our best shout, but even he's 7 mins back and probably too far to make up.

[redandblack]

Seems like Schleck and Contador are in a different class to the rest.

Kudos to Evans for a gutsy effort.

Compulsive viewing last two nights.

[mickey]

Australian Mark Renshaw paid the price for his team's win-at-all-costs approach to the Tour de France 11th stage on when he was kicked out of the race for headbutting.

Renshaw, the lead-out man for HTC-Columbia teammate Mark Cavendish, played a crucial role in Cavendish's six stage wins on the race last year.

But in the final 500 metres of the 184.5km stage from Sisteron, the normally affable Australian lost his head when he tried to headbutt Garmin-Transitions' Kiwi lead-out man Julian Dean three times.


http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2010/news/article/28777/Renshaw-booted-from-Tour

Not a bad effort at 60-70kmh

[Dogwatcher]

What a final 10 kilometres in tonight's stage. Gut wrenching stuff.
All of that tight racing through skinny streets and then that tight hill climb, both with massive crowds swamping the track, before plateauing on to a landing strip - it must have been somewhat surreal to hit that at the end.

[brod]

What a final 10 kilometres in tonight's stage. Gut wrenching stuff.
All of that tight racing through skinny streets and then that tight hill climb, both with massive crowds swamping the track, before plateauing on to a landing strip - it must have been somewhat surreal to hit that at the end.

Agree DW.it was a great final 10km to the stage. Im sure if it is just me that wants to see Contador fall over

[mickey]

Contador's break sends a bit of a warning to A. Schleck that he cant turn off for a second, not sure it was the best tactic to not be sitting right on Contadors wheel all the way up the climb though