Is it just me or is this Tour the most ho-hum in living memory? There were a couple of half decent climbs last night but a gigantic breakaway got away to lead the peleton home by over 15 minutes. Erstwhile barradoeur, Luis Leon Sanchez was finally rewarded for hanging in the Tour despite his crashes and injuries early in the week, breaking away in the closing kilometres for a deserved victory. Second, for the second straight stage was Peter Sagan, who has been absolutely everywhere at this year’s, and only further cemented his stranglehold on the green jersey by getting in the day’s move. France’s Sandy Casar was third.
All the main GC favourites finished together, but their distance from the winning break was exacerbated by the biggest news story of the day – punctures! Cadel Evans had put it yet another futile attack (God bless him!) on the Mur de Peguere that was reeled in by the evil empire, only to discover he had a rear puncture. He had to wait over a minute to steal the wheel of his first teammate to arrive (quality support BMC – where was TJVG FFS!?) – but Steve Cummings also had a puncture! Finally the neutral service car arrived and Cadel was on his way – only to puncture again on the descent and need a bike change!!! The man can attract drama. It turned out that the main field had been obliterated by tyre troubles with the story soon surfacing that someone somewhere had strewn tacs all over the road – one can only guess in the hope of creating their own real life Mario Kart stage (obviously banana’s were unavailable). Wiggo was kind enough to slow down the peleton to give Cadel and BMC at least a chance of chasing back on (we can still hate him though). Pierre Rolland showed some true French class by attacking on the descent anyway but Liquigas and Lotto chased him down like he was an escaped convict to put him back in his place.
Other than those shenanigans there was not too much too the day’s stage (feels like I’ve said that a lot this year).
Yellow Jersey – Bradley Wiggins
Green Jersey – Peter Sagan
Polka Dot Jersey – Frederick Kessiakoff
White Jersey – Tejay Van Garderen
Brock McLean’s Tweet of The Day
@nyvelocity – Pierre Rolland can look forward to about 4 years of getting his every move shut down by BMC
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