Week Two of The Tour de France
A Review of the Tour de France 2008 – Week Two
The second week of the 2008 Tour de France proved to be a tale of British dominance in the sprints, mountain-top attacks, and, unfortunately, doping scandals.
British Sprinter Dominates
23 year old British rider Mark Cavendish proved during the second week of this year's Tour that he is undoubtedly the fastest sprinter in the peloton by taking another three victories to add to the win he took in the opening week.
Cavendish, riding for Team Colombia, out-sprinted his rivals during stages eight, twelve and thirteen, winning all three comfortably.
Whilst not a contender for overall victory, Cavendish has without question been the star of the second week. His total of four victories during this year's race is most ever recorded by a British rider in a single Tour and, coupled with his two stage wins in this year's Giro, he is now one of the hottest properties in the peloton. In short, if a race comes down to a bunch sprint and Cavendish is in the bunch, he is now the man to beat.
Pyrenean Attacks
The first sorting of the General Classification contenders came during the second week, with attacks being seen during the first two Pyrenean stages, particularly on stage 10 up to the ski station of Hautacam.
The first attacks came on the race's first 'hors category' mountain – the Col de Tourmalet. Two and half kilometres from the top of the climb Spain's Alejandro Valverde and Italy's Damiano Cunego were put into trouble and were dropped by the other main contenders.
Valverde and Cunego attempted to claw back the gap on the descent of the Tourmalet and along the valley road before reaching the climb of Hautacam but their efforts were to no avail with team CSC pushing the leading group on. The climb to Hautacam saw a flurry of attacks within the leading group. The Saunier Duval duo of Leonardo Piepoli and Juan Jose Cobo sprinted away to take a Saunier Duval one-two but more notably for the General Classification CSC rider Frank Schleck attacked and put time into favourite Cadel Evans. Evans in turn put time into Kim Kirchen who was wearing the yellow jersey as well as maintaining the gap on Valverde and Cunego.
In what was the most definitive stage of the race so far, Evans ended the day in the yellow jersey with Frank Schleck in second place by just one second. American Christrian Vandevelde also had an impressive day moving up into third place overall, trailing Evans by only 38 seconds.
Biggest losers during the day were Valverde and Cunego who saw their hopes of overall victory all but dashed ending the day four minutes and 41 seconds and five minutes and 51 seconds down in the General Classification respectively. It will now take a massive effort in the Alps for either of these riders to feature on the podium in Paris.
Unfortunately as well as the second week providing fantastic on-road action it also gave us the first high profile doping scandal of this year's race. It was announced just before the start of stage 12 that Saunier Duval rider Riccardo Ricco, winner of two stages, had tested positive for EPO.
Saunier Duval immediately left the race and then subsequently sacked Ricco and also Leonardo Piepoli, winner of stage 10 to Hautacam. Team manager Mauro Gianetti told Italian television "I did not manage to obtain convincing answers from him (Piepoli) and I no longer want to have doubts. If I have made a mistake I will pay the consequences."
Regardless the Tour is finely balanced before entering its final week and three extremely tough stages in the Alps, with summit finishes at Prato Nevoso and Alpe d'Huez likely to see further shake up's in the General Classification. Then the peloton turn north again and head for a definitive 53 kilometre time trial on the penultimate day of the Tour.
With less than a minute covering the top five riders, Evans, who has been isolated from his team on more than one occasion during the race so far, will no doubt be attacked in the mountains. An intriguing week of racing lies ahead.
General Classification after Stage 14
- C. Evans (AUS) SIL: 59 hours, 1 minute, 55 seconds.
- F. Schleck (LUX) CSC: @ 1 second
- C. Vandevelde (USA) TSL @ 38 seconds
Selected others:
- D. Men
- (RUS) RAB: @ 57 seconds
- C. Sas
- (ESP) CSC: @ 1 min, 28 seconds
- A. Valv
- (ESP) GCE: @ 4 min, 41 seconds
- D. Cune
- ITA) LAM: @ 5 min, 37 seconds
References
Cycle Sport Magazine July 2008 Edition
Official Tour de France website
