In only one previous visit to the Mount Ventoux has the victor of the stage ever arrived at the top in the company of another rider. Back in 2000, this year’s returning superstar Lance Armstrong was at the beginning of his run of a record breaking 7 victories when flyweight Italian mountainmeister Marco Pantani pipped the Texan, already in the yellow jersey, to the thin white line that marks the point where you stop racing and become a tour legend.
Marco sadly, is no longer with us, but his rival for glory that day returned to the ‘bald mountain’ yesterday less with victory in mind than the fierce battle at hand to defend his position as 3rd best rider in this the world’s most prestigious bicycle race.
Forget the seemingly untouchable position of Alberto Contador and the dynamic sparkle of Andy Schleck in the best young rider’s jersey, the only race that mattered on Saturday was the mad scramble for the final step of the podium.
Less than 40 seconds separated 3rd to 6th and with Andy determined to help out big brother Frank, Maida Vale Mod pitted against Texan Cowboy and the German Kloden, lurking below the surface like a U-boat, it may not have been shaping up to be a battle of tempo but more a battle of tactics and so it proved.
As one viewer of Eurosport put it, ‘Standard Bruyneel Operating Procedure’ or SBOP had already be achieved by the time the peloton swung out of the village of Bedoin to face the battering of the Mistral on the Ventoux, with less than 40 riders able to hold the pace of Astana on the flat, let alone the mountain itself.
Contador waitied, Schleck Jr attacked, Contador responded….. and so it went on with the lanky Luxembourger displaying brotherly love above all real instinct to race as he spent as much time looking backwards down the mountain for brother Frank as up it for a chance to try and break the yellow jersey. With all instinct to race at the front removed by filial feeling , the focus of every good bikie’s attentions, and that of the moto cameras, focussed largely on the fascinating slow waltz being played out by the aforementioned cast of characters.
And slow was the operative word. So slow in fact did the wheeling, rotating group of protagonists become that riders put on the rivet at the foot of the climb by Astana such as Pellizotti (Liquigas)and Van den Broeck (Silence-Lotto) not only rode back up to the big men but scooted past them sensing that if the dancing stopped and hostilities resumed , just like their own homelands of Italy and Belgium in any war…. they’d be buggered.
But wait, I’m forgetting something here. Podium places aside, the day had started with the inevitable breakaway that, on reaching the climb, had so little advantage over the ravaging hordes that on any normal day it would have been confined to oblivion, but this was no ordinary day. The extraordinary by product of the wheeling and pirouetting behind meant that Spain’s Juan Manuel Garate (Rabobank)and German Tony Martin (Columbia HTC) remained ahead on the road with Garate able to outsprint Martin for the line and write his name in the record books beside those of Gaul, Poulidor, Merckx, Thevennet, Bernard, Pantani and Virenque. The last laugh will be on the dance troupe behind because in 20 years few looking at the record books will remember the struggle for 3rd in Paris, but all will register Juan Manuel Garate as winner.
Down behind the ecstatic Spaniard it was U-boat Kloden who was first to be sunk, scuppering all hopes the German might have had of making up the 2” deficit on British Battlecruiser Bradley Wiggins. The double Olympic Pursuit champion himself was in choppy waters as he slid slowly back from Frank Schleck and the incredible Lance Armstrong who secured his podium spot but wringing every last drop of horsepower from his motor denied the Luxembourger the opportunity to move to forth in the standings and in the process equalled the best ever position by a Brit in the final general classification.
Today’s final stage should be a procession…I say should….but who would bet against Wiggins going for a long one and 3rd spot overall……
