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McEwen takes his 9th stage; Hushovd back in yellow
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After suffering a stroke of bad luck in a finishing sprint for the second straight day at the Tour de France, it might seem like the gods are against Thor Hushovd. If that’s the case, they’ll have to try harder to hold back the big Norwegian, who snatched the yellow jersey back from American George Hincapie with a third-place finish behind Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) and Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic) in the 228.5km stage 2 from Obernai, France, to Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg.
In a long jaunt north from the Alsace region of eastern France to the industrial mining and steel manufacturing city of Esch-sur-Alzette, the sprinters took center stage on Monday. The second longest stage of the 2006 Tour wasn’t flat — the rolling route included two Cat. 3 climbs and three Cat. 4 climbs — but time bonuses at intermediate sprints and the finish enticed speedsters such as Hushovd, Boonen and McEwen with the opportunity to take over the yellow jersey.
McEwen ended up being the man of the day by taking his ninth Tour stage win, but Hushovd’s remarkable perseverance put him back in yellow after he had relinquished it to Hincapie for one day. Less than 24 hours after he was injured in a freak accident at the finish of yesterday’s stage, Hushovd went toe-to-toe with Boonen in Monday’s intermediate sprints and then salvaged a third-place finish behind McEwen and Boonen after he pulled his left foot out of his pedal in the last 20 meters. With his left leg flailing, Hushovd cranked one-legged for two revolutions and hung onto third place to secure the yellow jersey with a five-second GC gap over Boonen. Hincapie finished in the bunch and dropped to fourth overall.
It was a rough-and-tumble finale that saw a crash 2km from the finish and McEwen and Hushovd going all out against each other. After pulling his foot out of the pedal, Hushovd threw up a hand in protest, apparently objecting to McEwen’s sprint, but after watching the video afterward he decided all was fair.
"Robbie, like all other sprinters, sometimes he’s dangerous," Hushovd said. "But today I saw the sprint on television and he didn’t make any mistakes. That’s just a sprint and things happen. So I can’t blame him today."
Those things do happen in sprints, but after Hushovd’s high-speed tangle with spectators the previous day — which left his right arm cut and some of the other sprinters around him splattered with enough blood for a horror-movie set — it was a wonder that the Norwegian was even racing. While it was initially reported that a cardboard sponsor sign that was being held by a spectator had done most of the damage, Hushovd said Monday that it was actually a camera.
"I was just behind Boonen and McEwen and I got a small gap between Boonen and the barriers," Hushovd explained. "Then all the spectators that want to take photos or see what’s happening, I hit a few of them."
Hushovd took some stitches in his arm. The next morning he said the cut wouldn’t affect his ability to ride, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to sprint. "We’ll see," he said. "I’m for sure going to race and I’m going to finish, but I’m afraid I can’t sprint. My legs are good, my form is very good, but when I can’t pull on the handlebar, that’s a problem."
As it turned out, it wasn’t that much of a problem.
American contenders
With temperatures in the 80s and a blazing sun overhead, the field of 175 riders (a sick Danilo Di Luca did not start) gathered in the town of Obernai, at the foot of the Vosges Mountains, for a late-morning departure. Race leader George Hincapie strutted out of the Discovery Channel bus wearing the yellow jersey. Hincapie’s Blackberry had been blowing up the previous night with congratulations calls and e-mails. He said he hoped to still be wearing that yellow jersey at the end of the day, but his team would have to play it safe.
On the other side of the team area, Hincapie’s former U.S. Postal teammate Levi Leipheimer tinkered with his saddle and said he too was just hoping to get through the next couple of days safely.
"I’m just waiting and seeing, you know," said Leipheimer, who inherited the status of being the top finisher from last year’s Tour still racing in this year’s Tour after the controversial departure of Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC) and Alexander Vinokourov (Astaná) under the black cloud of doping allegations. "I think the sprinters’ teams will still be interested today so hopefully they’ll do most of the work."
The other Americans everyone had their eyes on were Phonak’s Floyd Landis and CSC’s David Zabriskie. Landis said that a minor snafu in the prologue — his mechanic noticed his tire was cut before the start and did a quick wheel change that cost him a handful of seconds — will be inconsequential in the big picture.
"They always check it before the start and there was a cut in it, so we felt it’d be safer to change it rather than risk a crash or something," Landis said. "It’s just a prologue. Worst-case scenario I lose a few seconds or something. I would have rather started on time, but at the time the decision was to change it and not take any risks."
Landis sat ninth in the GC before stage 2. Zabriskie, Landis’s roommate in Gerona, Spain, started the day third, a lofty position attained by his prologue ride. Before the start of stage 2, Zabriskie entertained himself by toying with the media a bit. When asked how he felt about his chance for the overall, Zabriskie smirked. "Not good at all," he said. "That’s just media hype and I’m not going to listen to it."
Zabriskie added that he was happy for Hincapie, though. "He deserves [the yellow jersey]," he said.
Unfortunately for Hincapie, his time in yellow didn’t last long. David de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir) and Aitor Hernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) broke away in the first kilometer and worked up a lead of more than eleven minutes that carried them through nearly all of the day’s climbs and sprint points. Had there been one or more in that long break, Hincapie might have held the leader’s jersey a bit longer, but while De la Fuente and Hernandez gobbled up the first- and second-place points respectively in the first two intermediate sprints, the third-place time bonuses were still in play.
Sprinters square off
Hushovd said he wasn’t feeling that great during the long, hot race, and at one point he drifted back to the medical car. "At first I was tired, probably because of the shock from yesterday," he said. "I had to take medications after they stitched me, and I think all the medication made me have a stomach ache."
Even so, Hushovd could still feel the power in his legs. So while McEwen chose not to contest the intermediate sprints, saying later that he prefers to hold himself back and fish for the big catch at the end, Hushovd and Boonen squared off and went at it.
"I knew I was only two seconds behind the yellow jersey, and I wanted to try to get it back," Hushovd said. "That’s why I did the sprint during the race. I didn’t feel 100 percent, but I think it will just get better and better this week."
The first showdown took place at the 107km mark. Boonen took that one, gaining two seconds and jumping up a couple of spots in the GC. Hernandez and De la Fuente were still away when the next sprint spot came more than 60km later. The battle for third was a rematch between Boonen and Hushovd. This time the Norwegian won, swinging around the left side of Boonen to take the two-second bonus.
At that point Hushovd became the virtual leader on the road, and it looked likely that the yellow jersey would be decided at the finish-line sprint.
Meanwhile, after more than 170km at the front, Hernandez was finally cooked. De la Fuente dropped his breakaway companion (who would finish dead last, more than 14 minutes back). And as the terrain turned hilly — there were three Cat. 4 climbs in the final 40km — the main field was bearing down. De la Fuente dug deep, hanging on to take the day’s final sprints points with 30km to go while clinging to a lead of 1:25 over the field.
With Hernandez now absorbed by the main field, second-place sprint points were available to the bunch, and this time Boonen beat Hushovd. The tally for the day was: Boonen 2, Hushovd 1. That also bumped Boonen up a few more spots in the GC, making it possible, with the right circumstances, for the world champion to take the yellow jersey at the end of the day.
Hectic finale
The other inter-race battle was for the climber’s polka-dot jersey. There were five categorized climbs (two Cat. 3s and three Cat. 4s), and De la Fuente’s long day at the front pushed him past German Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) in points. Wegmann battled to take points in Monday’s stage and actually got a gap off the front of the field when he topped the final climb, the Côte de Volmerance-les-Mines, on his own with 13.5km to go, but in the end he came up two points short of De la Fuente.
After Wegmann was caught, fellow German Matthias Kessler of T-Mobile made a solo attack with 6km to go. The veteran rider went clear over the final, uncategorized climbs, and flew down the fast descent toward the industrial town of Esch-sur-Alzette.
Erik Zabel’s Milram team led the chase with 2km to go, and despite a crash disrupting things, Kessler was caught just 100 meters from the line. McEwen said his American lead-out man Fred Rodriguez kept him safe and put him right where he needed to be to take his ninth Tour de France stage victory.
"Fred brought me up to about seventh or eighth position, which is just what I asked him to do," said McEwen. "So he did a good job."
With a rolling stage that will take riders through Luxembourg, Belgium and The Netherlands on tap for Tuesday, it’s anybody’s guess whether McEwen will get his shot at a tenth stage win — and if Hushovd will have to overcome some other freak incident to keep the yellow jersey.
Stay tuned for a preview of Stage 3 from VeloNews editorial director John Wilcockson.
Stage 2: Top 10
1. Robbie Mc Ewen (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto
2. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 00:00
3. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole, 00:00
4. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank, 00:00
5. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre, 00:00
6. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:00
7. Stuart O’Grady(Aus), CSC, 00:00
8. Bernhard Eisel (A), Francaise des Jeux, 00:00
9. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 00:00
10. Peter Wrolich (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:00
Overall
1. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole
2. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 00:05
3. Robbie Mc Ewen (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 00:08
4. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery Channel, 00:10
5. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne-I.B., 00:16
6. O’grady Stuart (Aus), CSC, 00:16
7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 00:18
8. Paolo Savoldelli (I), Discovery Channel, 00:20
9. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak, 00:21
10. Manuel Quinziato (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:24
To keep see how today's stage developed, simply CLICKHERE to open up our Live Update Window.
