Tag: tour de france 2012

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Sky Ride High

Plenty of reasons for Team Sky to be celebrating today, not only does Bradley Wiggins go into Stage 11 of the Tour de France – 148km from Albertville to La Toussuire – Les Sybelles – wearing the yellow jersey for a British record-breaking fourth day (beating Boardman and Millar’s three), but elsewhere Sky’s Ben Swift finished yesterday’s Stage 2 of the Tour of Poland in first place.

 

Easily outpacing Liquigas-Cannondale’s Elia Viviani, Swift lived up to his name over the 239.4km from Walbrzych to Opole, the longest stage in this year’s tour, to finish in a time of 5 hours 49’57”. Post-race, Swift commented, ‘It was brilliant. We made the call to save our legs for the lead out – if we needed to we were going to put someone on the front but the guys did a perfect job looking after me and got me right into position.’

 

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Wiggins Takes Time Trial

Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins has strengthened his lead at the Tour de France, winning his first stage, the Time Trial, in 51 minutes and 24 seconds across the 41.5km from Arc et Senans to Besancon. Resplendent once again in the yellow jersey he now leads the overall classifications by a margin of one minute and 53 seconds ahead of reigning TdF champion Cadel Evans (BMC), a massive improvement on the mere 10 second lead he had at the start of the day.

 

A naturally delighted Wiggens commented, ‘Time trialling’s what I do best… I get into my zone, know exactly the routine I have to go through during the stage and I felt great today. The minute I turned the first pedal stroke on the warm-up I felt fantastic so I knew I was on a good one. “This is what we’ve trained for”, Sean (Yates) was saying to me on the radio in the last 10km – “think of all those hours, all those sacrifices you’ve made”, this is what that was all for and that really motivated me. All the hard work during the winter, missing my children’s birthdays being on training camps and things – this is what it’s all for – these moments.’

 

A double reason for Team Sky to celebrate with Chris Froome taking the second place on the TT and RadioShacks Fabian Cancellara third.

 

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Wiggins Puts on the Yellow

20120707-183135.jpgThe first big climb of the Tour de France on Stage 7 (199 kilometres route from Tomblaine to La Planche) proved to be a spectacular success for Team Sky with Chris Froome taking a blazing win and Bradley Wiggins awarded the yellow jersey after finishing in third place two seconds adrift of his team mate and just a place behind rival Cadel Evans (BMC, on equal time). ‘It wasn’t the plan to go for the stage win, my only concern was keeping Bradley up there’ admitted a delighted Froome.

 

An even more understandably elated Wiggins added, ‘It sounds corny but this is something I’ve dreamt of since I was a child – sat on the home trainer in Kilburn watching my hero Miguel Indurain do it. Those dreams have come true now and I’m sat here at the top of a mountain in yellow. It’s phenomenal.’ Wiggins becomes only the fifth Briton to win the famous leader’s yellow jersey following in the tyre tracks of Tom Simpson (1962), Sean Yates (1994), David Millar (2000) and Chris Boardman who managed it an impressive three times – 1994, 1997 and 1998.

 

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Road Rash at TdF

Carnage is really the only way to describe today’s Stage 6 (Epernay to Metz) of the Tour de France which was defined by a devastating crash with around 25km left to the line. The peleton was decimated, shaking up the general classification and leaving twisted frames and more than a little flesh across the tarmac with the lucky few, including the bulk of BMC and Team Sky (Cadel Evans, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish amongst them) to forge ahead. However it was none of these that ultimately swept to victory, but rather, in a blaze of sprint prowess, points classification leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) taking his third Stage win of this year’s Tour. Reports are still coming in as to how badly injured and, indeed, affected for overall time, those caught up in today’s incident were, but it will be miraculous if one or more withdrawals aren’t announced. Cyclo will keep you posted…

 

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Greipel Makes it Two for Two

Yesterday (June 5) saw Lotto’s Andre Greipel power home to his second Tour de France stage victory in a row across the 196.5km route from Rouen to Saint-Quentin in a time of 4 hours 41’30”, keeping Matt Goss in second and Juan Jose Haedo in third. In an exhilarating sprint finish – which Greipel described as ‘one of the most difficult sprints ever’ – Sky’s Mark Cavendish was outclassed to finish in fifth and was lucky to escape a repeat of Wednesday’s wipe-out when a late crash, which appeared to have been caused by Garmin-Sharp’s Tyler Farrar making a sudden change of direction, saw a number of contenders taken out. Amongst those injured were Katusha’s Belarusian rider Aliaksandr Kuchynski who suffered a fracture to the scaphoid bone of his right hand – he is however expected to continue riding today.

 

With Bradley Wiggins finishing safely in 18th to maintain his overall second place, Sean Yates, Team Sky Sports Director, clearly remains upbeat, commenting: ‘The final didn’t work out quite how we wanted it but the guys were all there and they did a good job. We upped the ante and next time it will be better. Cav dropped back a bit at the finish and had a bit too much work to do at the end… We need to keep this going starting tomorrow and we will look to keep Bradley safe and set Mark up heading into the finish.’

 

The action continues today (207.5km Epernay to Metz) with RadioShack’s Fabian Cancellara remaining top of the overalls with a time of 24hours 45’32”

 

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Cavendish Wins the Day

20120702-195323.jpgMark Cavendish took his first (of many?) wins as a Team Sky rider at the Tour de France today (Monday, July 2), delivering a quite brilliant display to win Stage Two in a time of 4h56’59”. In the first sprint finish of the Tour, Cav had positioned himself superbly in order to go head to head in the final 200 yards and force Lotto-Belisol’s Andre Greipel into second and Orica-GreenEDGE’s Matthew Goss into third. The victory marked his 21st stage victory at the TdF, putting him sixth on the all-time list behind the legendary Eddy Merckx and just a single stage behind Lance Armstrong.

 

Speaking after the stage, Cavendish commented, ‘I’ve been on the back foot but I’ve been more relaxed than ever coming into this Tour de France as the pressure hasn’t been there for me to do anything. (A win) doesn’t give me any more confidence as it’s never easy to win a Tour de France stage, with a team or on your own… It wasn’t as windy as I thought it was going to be and that didn’t play as much of a factor. It’s been a good start to the race for the team. Brad stayed out of trouble and hopefully he can continue on towards yellow. We’re here to win the yellow jersey. I’m here to do what I did today.’

 

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TdF Weekend Roundup

Tour de FranceAn exhilarating weekend opening for the 2012 Tour de France, which saw RadioShack-Nissan’s Fabian Cancellara take the Liege ITT Prologue win with Sky’s Bradley Wiggins in second and Omega Pharma-Quickstep’s in third. Wiggins, something of a TdF favourite this year, began his attack 11th last out on the 6.4km course with a time of 7minutes 20 (set by Sylvain Chavanel of Omega Pharma-QuickStep) to beat, but finishing his run with the new benchmark set (and ten riders still to race.) Despite ultimately taking second once Cancellara had turned out, Wiggins saw himself well set-up for the coming days and without the undue pressure of being first in the overalls; always magnanimous Wiggins commented, ‘Fair play to Fabian, he’s the best in the world at what he does and I think he proved that again today.’

 

With a tough climb finish on Stage 1 (Day 2) it was Liquigas-Cannondale’s Peter Sagan that crossed the line first after 198km of racing that, for a long time, had seen no clear leader. Prologue winner Cancellara took the second place (thus retaining his first overall standing) and Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen third, both on equal timings to Sagan. Misfortune with a puncture within 10km of the finish line saw Sky’s Chris Froome finish a disappointing 95th on the day, whilst last year’s champion, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), currently sits at eighth overall.

 

The TdF continues today (July 2) with the 207.5km leg from Visé to Tournai.

 

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Saxo Bank Name TdF Squad

Danish-based Team Saxo Bank have named their nine riders for this year’s Tour de France, they are: Juan José Haedo, Jonathan Cantwell, Nick Nuyens, Chris Anker Sørensen, Nicki Sørensen, Michael Mørkøv, Anders Lund, Karsten Kroon and Sergio Paulinho.

 

Commenting on the selection team owner Bjarne Riis comments: ‘…I believe we have found a great mix of experience, aggressiveness and different competencies… We will bring JJ (Argentina’s Juan José Haedo) for the sprints, and we have some trusted helpers around him. In Chris we have a rider with the potential to really influence the mountain stages and maybe he is even a guy to watch for the mountain jersey. And lead by Nick and Nicki we field a group of riders with both power and flair to go in breakaways.’

 

With Spanish rider Alberto Contador continuing to serve out his ban for doping offences at the 2010 TdF Team Saxo Bank approach the event with something of a strategic gap, but Riis clearly remains upbeat – ‘Of course this is a very different job waiting for us this year without a designated GC rider. But I see this as an exiting challenge and a possibility to take some risks that would have been practically impossible under other circumstances. I actually have a really good feeling about the Tour, and I don’t think it would be wise to underestimate our team.’

 

Image (c)Tim De Waele