Oscar Pereiro, left, and Jens Voigt made the most of a 129-mile breakaway Saturday; Pereiro winning the yellow jersey and Voigt winning the Tour de France's longest stage.
Maybe not so much that Pereiro won the yellow; it was pretty much handed to him by Floyd Landis and his Phonak team after they tired of driving the peloton Saturday and probably didn't relish the thought of keeping up that effort on Sunday.
Phonak team manager John Lelangue explained to VeloNews:
“We were happy with our strategy today. Obviously it's not too nice losing the yellow jersey, but it's in Paris that we want it most.”
Pereiro (Caisse d'Epargne) and Voight (CSC) were members of a five-man breakaway that formed about 14 miles into Saturday's stage, a 143-mile bike race from Beziers to Montelimar. The others were Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), Manuel Quinziato (Liquigas) and Andriy Grivko (Milram).
Spanish cyclist Pereiro was the highest placed racer in the group, sitting 28:50 back in 46th place. It seems inconceivable that he could gain all that time and leapfrog all those other cyclists into first place, but that's what he was allowed to do.
Phonak kept a steady pace at the front of the peloton, but the five-man break kept adding time. Not until Pereiro and Voigt reached Montelimar and set a nearly 30-minute margin did other teams, notably 3rd place Denis Menchov's Rabobank team, come to the front to help set the pace.
But even those fresher teams lost interest, leaving Pereiro in the yellow jersey for the first time and giving the Caisse d'Epargne team the job of defending their rider's overall lead if they want to keep it.
Let's see if Phonak's strategy pays off. Pereiro was sitting so far back in the standings because he lost big time in Pyrenees on Thursday.
At the start of Sunday's 112-mile race from Montelimar to Gap, Landis will sit in 2nd place, 1:29 behind Pereiro. It's a much hillier day as the peloton enters the foothills of the Alps, with two Category 3 and two Category 2 climbs. The racers rest on Monday and attack the Alps on Tuesday.
As for Voigt, his win helps to boost CSC's morale which hit rock bottom after losing Ivan Basso to the doping investigation, Bobby Julich to a time trial crash, and Giovanni Lombardi to exhaustion in the Pyrenees.
The Top 10 overall are:
1. Oscar Pereiro Sio (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne
2. Floyd Landis (US), Phonak, 1:29 behind
3. Cyril Dessel (Fr), Ag2r Prevoyance, 1:37
4. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank, 2:30
5. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 2:46
6. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, 3:21
7. Andréas Klöden (Ger), T-Mobile, 3:58
8. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 4:51
9. Miguel Juan Mercado, (Sp), Agritubel, 5:02
10. Christophe Moreau (Fr), Ag2r Prevoyance, 5:13
The standings among the 6 Americans:
2. Floyd Landis, Phonak — 1:29 behind
15. Levi Leipheimer, Gerolsteiner — 7:08 behind
29. Christian Vandevelde, CSC — 15:10 behind
41.George Hincapie, Discovery — 24:28 behind
74. David Zabriskie, CSC — 44:00 behind
104. Chris Horner, Davitamon-Lotto — 59:39 behind
Recent Comments