Stage 16 - French Glory, RadioShack Played It Safe

Last night I got all excited with speculation that RadioShack-Nissan-Trek might throw its three leaders into the GC fight and really mix things up. Alas, it didn’t happen.

Before the climbing started, there was a big breakaway group of 38 riders, and RNT had two riders in that pack. But Voigt and Popovych are not highly placed for GC, so the yellow jersey contenders let them go. After 4 killer mountains, only 10 (including Voigt) of the original 38 escapees finished ahead of Wiggins, and none of the 10 is in the top 20 for GC.

French favorite Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) broke free of the attack group near the top of the Col du Tourmalet, and pushed on over two more mountains to claim the stage victory. He won FIVE prizes in the process to make this a day of French glory! The big prize was the stage victory. He also reclaimed the polka-dot King of the Mountains jersey, and was declared the most combative for the day (red number bib for tomorrow). His early finish led the Europcar team to the daily team prize. Finally, he won the Souvenir Jacques Goddet prize of 5,000 Euros for being first over the Tourmalet, highest mountain pass in the Pyrénées. Quite a haul!

Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) attacked Bradley Wiggins (Sky) and Chris Froome (Sky) while climbing the final mountain of the day (Col de Peyresourde). This created a gap on most of the other GC riders, but Wiggins and Froome bridged the gap near the top of the climb. Those three–already top 3 in the GC race–cruised home together 7 minutes behind Voeckler, but ahead of all other GC contenders to retain their placements and relative time gaps.

The rest of the GC hopefuls all lost time to Wiggins. Cadel Evans (BMC) lost so much time (-4'47") that he fell from 4^th place overall to 7^th. Any hope he had of defending his title from last year evaporated today. Evans cracked under the pace of Nibali, Wiggins and Froome, and would have dropped even further without the help of his teammates Amaël Moinard and George Hincapie, who nursed him home. I would give Hincapie a gold star for pulling himself out of a ravine (from a crash), getting his shoulder, arm and leg patched up by the moto-doctor, and then fighting back into the race to be in a position to rescue Evans at the end. What a trooper!

Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) lost one minute to Wiggins because of the Nibali attack. But Thibaut Pinot lost almost three. So, Tejay’s margin over Pinot for the white jersey (youth) has doubled to almost 4 minutes. If he rides smart tomorrow (the last mountain stage), he should wear the white jersey all the way to Paris.

No green jersey (sprint) contender collected any points in today’s stage, so Peter Sagan (Liquigas) still leads in that prize category. His 100-point margin should be insurmountable.

Although RadioShack’s leaders did not attack Wiggins, as I had hoped, they did ride home with the trailing wave of GC contenders. With Voigt finishing among the 10 survivors of the breakaway, RadioShack easily increased its lead in the contest for the team prize. This prize should also be unassailable between now and Paris.

This is the view of the Pyrénées peaks along the border with Spain from the summit of the Col du Tourmalet.  Riders, left to right:  Nan & Aaron Kennard, Matt & Ashley Jensen.  (May, 2011)

Nan, Ashley and Matt climbing the eastern slopes toward the Col du Tourmalet.  In today's stage 16, the Tour climbed the Tourmalet from the west.  So, they came screaming down this very road on their way to the next climb, the Col d'Aspin.

In honor of Thomas Voeckler's 5-prize day of glory for France, I am posting this photo of Versailles.  The words across the top of the Palace read: "To All the Glories of France."  Chapeau, M. Voeckler!  (Photo by Suzanne Kennard.)