This needs its own space, at this point. The "facts": George Hincapie joined an escape that spent most of the day a good six minutes up the road from the peloton, including the yellow jersey. Hincapie was the best-placed rider at something like 5.40, so that six minute gap was good enough to put him in yellow, if it held. It didn't, by a mere five seconds. Among the factors reducing the gap were Astana on the front of the peloton (in mid-stage), and a few late pulls from teams like Garmin and Silence-Lotto.
At the finish Hincapie, a 13-year veteran of the Tour de France, was bitterly disappointed and blamed Astana for denying him a moment of glory, which he certainly has earned after all the years -- helping guys now on Astana, no less. Frankie Andreu, the Vesus reporter, pointed out (ratted out?) that Garmin had chased pretty hard in the last 10km. The finger-pointing has been fast and furious ever since. And nowhere is the hilarity greater than at Lance Armstrong's twitter account, which I have pasted on the jump for posterity.
Did Astana deny their former friend and loyal soldier his rightful moment in the sun? Did Slipstream get a bug up their butts about Columbia and chase down the break for that reason? Will any American cycling team ever be on speaking terms with another American team? I dunno... but that's a polemica!
[And yes, I know Astana aren't technically American.]
- atkearns why we pulled so hard? When we started it was 6:00. When we stopped it was 8:40. Those are the facts...
- Last thing. There were 13 guys in the breakaway. We had 2 guys riding "tempo". That is not chasing by any stretch of the imagination.
- @bbelshaw told astana 2 chase? Not true @ all. My vision was george would have YJ by 2 mins. Was reality til ag2r and garmin started 2 pull.
- @BritneyGears you're clueless
- RT @dzabriskie: Pawns in their game...
- @bfogelstrom And george should be pissed. Very pissed. He can talk to his teammates who were n the bunch w/ us then perhaps it will be clear
- @billmackiernan exactly, that's why we were riding medium to let the gap get as big as possible...
- And I reiterate. @ghincapie deserves to be yellow tonight. He deserves more than that. Look to who pulled the last 50k to see who to blame..
- Until 10km to go he was solidly in yellow until GARMIN put on the gas and made sure it didn't happen.
- Our team rode a moderate tempo to put him in the jersey by at least 2 mins. Ag2r said they would not defend then they started to ride.