Thomas Voeckler claims a heroic stage victory over breakaway partner Michele Scarponi and the ageless “Grimace” Jens Voigt. There are no changes in the overall standings.
Phil Ligget said it all.
“This is the slowest sprint I’ve ever seen!”
The comment was a testament to the intensity of the day’s stage and the ferocity of the home stretch.
It wasn’t a sprint really but a collection of five uphill, 1000m individual time trials – in slow motion. Dries Devenyns attacked his breakaway companions Thomas Voeckler, Jens Voigt, Luis Leon Sanchez and Michele Scarponi 3kms from the finish.
Voeckler, the work horse in the breakaway, rightly refused to chase and the Belgian Devenyns jumped out to a handy lead. It was Sanchez who took up the slack before Voigt, who had just bridged a 2 minute gap on the descent, attacked.
The 40 year old Grimace was going to catch Devenyns. Then Voeckler launched his umpteenth surge of the day, dropped the Grimace and swept past Devenyns who was running on empty. With just 800 gruesome uphill metres to go, Sanchez, Voigt and Scarponi were each in a private hell in pursuit of Voeckler, who spent more time checking his tail than focusing on the finish line.
He could hardly celebrate when he finally finished. A blown kiss was enough. Voeckler takes the polka-dot jersey, an incredible feat considering he was close to abandoning with a knee injury a couple of days ago.
There’s no change in the overall classification despite a frantic downhill attack by Italian Vincenzo Nibali in the last 30km. Cadel Evans made an unsuccessful bid for a couple of seconds on the finish line. He’ll need a better effort in the real mountains if he wants to peg back Bradley Wiggins.
As Evans said
on his website:
A mountainous day but not too much excitement on the GC front; I hope these climbs that are so far from the finish don’t lead to a controlled and predictable Tour… I might have missed an opportunity with Nibali today on the descent of Grand Colombier, but with the open and exposed Col du Richmont – it was more favourable to the controlling team than one or two out in front alone.
Tomorrow’s tougher shorter stage will hopefully offer more opportunities – more interesting for everyone involved.
Evans’ BMC teammate Teejay van Garderen retains the white jersey, 25 seconds ahead of Rein Taaramae. Peter Sagan stays in green ahead of Matt Goss and Radioshack stay top of the team classification.
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