Stage 13 - Championship Qualities

"Perhaps one day I will look back on this stage as a great effort, but at the moment I feel too disappointed to see it that way" – Jeremy Roy

What looked like being a hum drum day in the Pyrenees produced a stunning final 15km that resembled a three man pursuit race. In the end it was World Champion Thor Hushovd who took the win, from a pair of Frenchman, David Moncoutie, and the extremely brave Jeremy Roy, who led but all for the last 2 of the final 50 or so kilometres. Despite missing the win Roy did not go home empty handing, taking the lead in the Mountains classification by 5 points from Sammy Sanchez.

I’m sure Hushovd will get all the plaudits for his win, the only one of his 9 Tour stage victories to occur in the mountains, but for mine the hero of the day was Jeremy Roy. Roy climbed to the lead on the day’s major ascent of the Col d’Aubisque, and as such, had to ride the final 50km+ alone if he was to hold on for the winner. A lead of around 80 seconds at the top of the climb was gradually whittled down by Hushovd and Moncoutie (with the God of Thunder doing pretty much all the work), and with 15km to go all hope seemed lost for Roy as he led by only 15 seconds. Amazingly he dug deep and maintained that advantage for the next 10 kilometres. Despite the repeated urgings of team manager Marc Madiot, the distance proved just a few short kilometres too far. With around 3km to go Hushovd produced a final burst of acceleration to drop Moncoutier and Roy’s brave resistance ended as he was finally swept up by his two pursuers. With all his energy spent he drifted into third around half a minute behind Hushovd. Pointing to his heart as he crossed the line, I am sure most of world cycling wished he could have held on for the victory.

Outside of the final contest for victory the stage was an absolute fizzer despite the climb up the Aubisque. Europecar controlled the peleton to protect Voeckler’s lead and none of the big leaders were willing to make any moves with 40km of descending remaining from the summit to the finish. The leaders probably had at least one eye on tonight’s epic summit finish but it did look like another case of poor stage design by Tour director Christian Prudhomme. Philippe Gilbert made a strange tactical decision to ride off the front of the peleton on the descent to pick up a few green jersey points at the finish, but Mark Cavendish still holds a relatively comfortable lead in the points classification despite finishing in the autobus (Rojas made it over the Aubisque to lead the peleton home behind Gilbert).

Tonight sees the second of the big Pyrenean stages with three major climbs culminating in Plateau de Beille. Ominously, every rider who has won the stage finish at Plateau de Beille has gone on to win the Tour that same year. Given that, you would think the big favourites would come out to play tonight.

Yellow Jersey – Thomas Voeckler
Green Jersey – Mark Cavendish
Polka Dot Jersey – Jeremy Roy
White Jersey – Arnold Jeannesson

Photo courtesy of Cyclingnews.