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23 seconds: Will Sunday be for champagne or time bonuses?

Published: Jul. 28, 2007

The final stage of the Tour de France is traditionally a ceremonial ride into Paris, a day for the yellow jersey to sip champagne and the sprinters to fight for victory on the Champs-Élysées, one of the most celebrated avenues in cycling.

Then again, never in the Tour has there been a final-day road stage quite like tomorrow’s, which is poised to close out the second-closest Tour in history, with Alberto Contador of Discovery Channel leading Cadel Evans of Predictor-Lotto by just 23 seconds. Contador’s teammate Levi Leipheimer sits third overall, just eight seconds behind Evans.

The tightest margin of Tour victory occurred in 1989, when American Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon in a 24.5km final-stage time trial by 58 seconds to win the Tour by a scant eight seconds.

There will be 20, 12 and eight seconds on the line for Sunday’s stage winner, as well as two intermediate sprints on the road offering 6, 4 and 2 seconds each.

Incidentally, the second intermediate sprint point comes at Châtenay-Malabry, the home of the anti-doping laboratory that produced the positive result for testosterone by last year’s Tour winner Floyd Landis.

Even if Evans were to take both intermediate sprints and Contador did not cross either intermediate point in second or third position, Evans would still sit 11 seconds behind Contador heading in to the final sprint, where points leader Tom Boonen will look to defend against Robbie Hunter.

“If it's under 20 seconds, I think we would race for it,” Predictor-Lotto sport director Hendrink Redant said after Friday's stage. “It's the Tour de France. It's still a stage to be raced. Of course, it would be difficult. The sprinters want to win that stage. It's very prestigious for them. I cannot imagine that Cadel can beat Boonen to the line.”

Prior to the time trial American Chris Horner of Predictor-Lotto also said the team would race if the time gap was under 20 seconds.

“Wouldn’t you?” Horner said. “It is for the overall win at the Tour de France.”

However the final kilometers of a Tour sprint can be a dangerous place for non-sprinters, as Evans was reminded Friday when he was bounced between a spectator and a fan and nearly crashed.

“I don’t think it will be worth the risk after what happened yesterday when we had a really close call,” Evans said. “But I think we might be talking about it tomorrow.”

Prior to Saturday’s time trial CSC’s Fabian Cancellara said he hoped the strongest rider would win the Tour outright in the race against the clock.

“I hope on Sunday we don’t have any bonifactions [bonus] sprints between Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador,” Cancellara said. “I want to see the strongest rider win.”

Likewise, when asked if there might be GC racing on the Champs Elysees, Saunier Duval-Prodir rider David Millar answered, “No. Never.”

If Evans is an aggressor on Sunday, he won’t need to worry about defending his second-place position. Leipheimer said he would ride to protect Contador’s lead rather than to move up into second place.

Leipheimer knows firsthand what it means to be bumped out of a GC spot on the Champs-Élysées. When Alexander Vinokourov won the stage in 2005, moving past Leipheimer into fifth place in the overall standings.

“I'm not going to pull a Vinokourov on Cadel tomorrow,” Leipheimer said. “He's a better sprinter than me anyway.”