Speed is out as Tour gets serious
VITRE, France – Tour de France favorites, it’s time to step up.
The race to become Lance Armstrong’s successor begins in earnest today with the first long time trial on a Tour marked by crashes and a doping investigation that has stripped the event of elite riders.
After an opening week when top riders took few risks and the glory belonged to sprinters like Robbie McEwen, the time trial should help reveal the true contenders in a depleted field.
McEwen’s win in Friday’s sixth stage was his third this year and 11th in nine Tours.
The Australian won in characteristic fashion, muscling past other sprinters. Among them was Tom Boonen, the overall race leader who clung to the prized yellow jersey but is frustrated not to have another stage victory to go with the four he has from previous Tours.
McEwen was effusive in thanking teammate Gert Steegmans, likening his sprint lead-in man to a French high-speed train. The Belgian acts like a booster rocket for McEwen in sprint finishes, pulling him along and positioning him for the final solo dash to the line.
“It’s like sitting on my own personal TGV (high-speed train). I’m the only one with a ticket and I just have to get off at my station,” McEwen said. “When he started, I really had to jump to go with him, and if I really have to jump to go with somebody in the wheel, it means that nobody can probably follow.”
Stars of the fast and relatively flat first week – McEwen, Boonen and other sprinters – will cede the limelight. And Boonen will almost certainly cede the yellow jersey as well. That will now belong to all-arounders and mountain climbing specialists once the Tour heads south into the Pyrenees next week.
In fact, Boonen’s fourth consecutive day in the race leader’s yellow shirt today could be his last. The Belgian is not among those expected to shine in the time trial, which favors racers able to ride quickly and steadily over long distances.
Perhaps not since 1999, when Armstrong first took control of the Tour, has the outcome of a time trial seemed so uncertain. The seven-time Tour champion excelled in the discipline, winning nine of the 14 time trials of 10 miles or longer during his championship streak.
Of the four people who beat Armstrong in long time trials, only two are racing: American David Zabriskie of Team CSC and Saunier Duval’s David Millar, a Briton back from a two-year doping ban.
The only other riders to beat Armstrong at the Tour time trial were German Jan Ullrich and Colombian Santiago Botero, and they aren’t riding this time because of allegations they were linked to a doping ring in Spain.
Zabriskie, Millar and world time trial champion Michael Rogers could all make their mark today over the 32-mile course that cuts a loop northwest of the Brittany city of Rennes.