The Pursuit of Green

by jsallee00 on Jul 6, 2009 12:49 AM EDT Comment 33 comments

Apologies if I'm stepping on anyone's toes, but I was out riding and had the thought that I'd like to do a regularly updated feature about the race for the Green Jersey. Chris did a great preview here, and I see Ursula did another good post specifically dealing with how to beat Cav here. A lot of stuff from today's stage is already covered there. But there was more that happed today than just Cav, and I think it's fun to look at it, and I'd love your input. This all comes from watching the Vesus coverage and then looking at the video on Wielerflits site.

Your overall top 10:

1.	CAVENDISH Mark	71	TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC	35 pts
2.	FARRAR Tyler	53	GARMIN - SLIPSTREAM	30 pts
3.	FEILLU Romain	175	AGRITUBEL	26 pts
4.	HUSHOVD Thor	6	CERVELO TEST TEAM	24 pts
5.	ARASHIRO Yukiya	142	BBOX BOUYGUES TELECOM	22 pts
6.	CIOLEK Gerald	182	TEAM MILRAM	20 pts
7.	BONNET William	143	BBOX BOUYGUES TELECOM	19 pts
8.	ROCHE Nicolas	89	AG2R-LA MONDIALE	18 pts
9.	DE KORT Koen	193	SKIL-SHIMANO	17 pts
10.	MONDORY Lloyd	86	AG2R-LA MONDIALE	16 pts

Interested? Then follow me to the other side...

Looking at the end of the stage, the first thing that strikes me is why people help Columbia? Case in point Milram, with 2k to go, the Moo Men are on the front burning themselves up, why? This would hurt them later. The Columbia takes over, sending five guys to the front and turning up the pace. Everyone else starts fighting for position and the winners in this battle were Garmin. Remember when Tyler was getting pushed all over the place early in the season? Not today, with Julian Dean's help, he literally shoved his way into the prime spot on Cav's wheel, and he held it despite a lot of shoving going on.

I don't know what exactly happened next, but by all appearances, Koldo Fernandez was bound and determined to straight when the course took a right turn. Given that he was in 12th position at the time, this had some fairly dire consequences for most of the field. It put an end to any of the hopes for Boonen, Benna, Unibrow and others.

The aftermath has Hincapie and Renshaw leading out Cav, with Tyler on Cav's wheel. This is followed by a pretty decent gap. Ciolek does a great job to close this down (by himself since his team was long spent). GHH also does a great job of towing Thor up to the action. But right about the time they latch on, Renshaw pulls away and Cav takes off. Renshaw pulls off in a way that makes Thor adjust his line to avoid him, and Cav rides everyone else off his wheel. To me, that's the most amazing part, not that he held everyone else off, he actually rode Tyler Farrar off his wheel!

Tyler has made a lot of improvements this year, but that has to be a little discouraging. He was in prime position and not only couldn't come around Cav, he couldn't even hold his wheel.

Ciolek had to spend a lot of energy to bridge up, and Renshaw pretty much took Thor out (in a clean, safe, smart way). This might have moved them up from 4 & 6 to 3 & 4, but they weren't going to do any better than that today.

No one will be as fresh as they were today, what will happen to the sprinters legs as the race moves forward will have to be watched.

It really seems that in a straight up sprint no one will be able to stop Columbia from delivering Cav to where he needs to get, and once there, no one is going to pass him. Again, lots of discussion about this in Ursula's thread so I won't repeat it.

Tomorrow, someone will have to try somthing different. Who will it be and what will they do?

0 recs | Comment 33 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Any day now Cervelo...any day now you can give GHH a chance

maybe they did, GHH said Napolitano rode like an idiot today and I’m guessing he took him out of a chance to sprint.

Vamos Alberto!!!

by Phil H. on Jul 5, 2009 10:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

GHH

I’d love to see him try another MSR style attack- without the hesitation this time. I think the time to make a move is early not late, and he is one of the few people that could pull it off

"I get paid to hurt other people. How good is that? How good is that?
I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, that's good." Jens!

by jsallee00 on Jul 5, 2009 11:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'd like to see him just try in a sprint led out by Thor...

I doubt he could beat Cav but we haven’t really been able to see just how quick he is in the sprint. We know how good of a classic’s rider he is but just how quick is his acceleration?

Vamos Alberto!!!

by Phil H. on Jul 5, 2009 11:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Today's finish got botched by the unattentiveness

or confusion on the part of some riders.

Still Columbia wasn’t going to be beaten. Freshness in the legs shouldn’t be an issue for Cav tomorrow as he was perfectly placed throughout the run-in and didn’t have to expend any unnecessary energy. You can be sure that the riders caught off guard today will study the finish and have their heads up tomorrow.

To the riders defence though, it was odd to me that the outside of that turn wasn’t completely barricaded.

Cav is on form for sure, Tyler couldn’t do anything better. Columbia is too strong and focused and honed. But still they will be beaten one of these 10 times, won’t they?

by sminer on Jul 5, 2009 11:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Right

I was going to mention that too. Why was that stretch left unbarricaded? Seemed really odd. It’s not a really good excuse for missing the turn, and really it probably saved a couple asses by giving the caught out riders a place to escape to.

"I get paid to hurt other people. How good is that? How good is that?
I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, that's good." Jens!

by jsallee00 on Jul 6, 2009 12:03 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Looked to me like

several riders were forced to the left by the Eusie rider’s fall. I guess if the options are to take the wrong turn or get involved in a crash, then taking the wrong turn looks pretty good.

by Le Comte on Jul 6, 2009 1:44 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I notice Oscar was one of those

not in on the finish. It’ll be pretty tough defending his green jersey spotting Cav 35 points on stage 1.

Ditto Boonen and Benna, who finished 174th & 175th, respectively, so I assume they must have been shunted off on the wrong turn by the Euskie rider’s fall.

If Cav gets to Paris and doesn’t win the green jersey, it will be, in my mind, a major upset after today. I don’t know much about Feillu, but the only sprinters who really kept contact with Cav, pointwise, were Farrar and Hushovd.

by Le Comte on Jul 6, 2009 1:42 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No barricades?

It was the detour away from the finishing straight for the team cars.

by civetta on Jul 6, 2009 4:01 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

have at it!

I am all for your doing these. My plan is to update the power poll once a week, and I want to revisit the sprinters statistics we made up over the winter, but you’re free to add in the analysis part.

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn,
Roll on Columbia, Roll on!

by Chris... on Jul 6, 2009 12:52 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

boonen

i ending at mjs due to tech. issues,cav won ,far on wheel ,tom?

by urban attacker on Jul 6, 2009 1:43 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

tommeke came in 174th

I haven’t looked at the replays, but I assume he must have got shunted over into that wrong turn with 750m left with several others. Hushovd, Feillu, and Farrar and a Japanese guy I’d never heard of before were the only sprinters I’m familiar with who were close. Well, kind of close. OK, at last 4 or 5 bike lengths back (that was Farrar, and I believe he was a length on Feillu).

by Le Comte on Jul 6, 2009 1:54 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Boonen

Was next to Koldo (on his left shoulder) and got forced onto the side street. He looked like he was in pretty good position at that point. Tough break for him. Just before the turn, he took a pretty tough shove from Ciolek, he had room to move over or that could have been ugly to. Tough day for Tommeke.

"I get paid to hurt other people. How good is that? How good is that?
I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, that's good." Jens!

by jsallee00 on Jul 6, 2009 2:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

guy never heard of before

actually got plenty of attention from the France 2/3 broadcast, especially in the prologue but also after yesterday, along with many others. For those of us outside France who can afford to understand the tongue it’s actually worth finding a live stream – they can really fill a 4hr transmission with interesting details, knowledgeable commentary from Fignon and others and… uh… not so much about Him. A step up from what I remember OLN coverage to be during my years in the states, but maybe it got much better.

by agostinho on Jul 6, 2009 5:24 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This will be a great feature, jsallee00

Especially since basically all of the sprinters stages are crammed into the first two weeks.

by ursula on Jul 6, 2009 1:58 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm not a boxing fan

But it would be interesting to see the sprint analyzed as a fight. Trash talk, weigh-in stare downs, the posse (or crew or whatever they call them) joining the boxer, etc. One reason to why Milram were at the front could be that they wanted to show the others (first and formost Columbia) that they are there, that Milram got one badassed sprinter and no one should dare mess with him.

And then they get their ass kicked anyway. So maybe it’s more of a dance-off.

Staring at the swim team gets you killed by a gang of dancing ninja men who know how to twirl.

by TheFigurehead on Jul 6, 2009 3:19 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I guess Cav has some words for the Skil rider that was bumped into him by Napolitiano....

Apparently Piet Roojakers took his hands off the bars at 2k to push Cavendish and he didn’t like it one bit. Guys needs to learn a bit of sprint etiquette, especially at the TdF where you’ll be scrutinized

by Vlaanderen90 on Jul 6, 2009 3:33 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Skil story about it was different

Rooijakkers was pushed into the Columbia train by Lloyd Mondory. Rooijakkers said that Cav almost pulled him of his bike. That’s when he hit back. After the finish Cav was pretty mad at van Hummel, who had nothing to do with it.
+1 for BAH in my book.

"Where there’s a will, there’s a way.": Alberto Contador, shortly after waking up from brain surgery.

by Lopex on Jul 6, 2009 4:36 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs