5:30am - OLN preshow. They keep running footage
of Lance smoking past
Jan Ullrich. Awesome stuff.
5:50am - They start coverage a few minutes early
- nice, I don't have to wait
three hours for some live footage. Today's flat
stage runs from Challans on the
north west coast of France to Les Essarts, and
covers a distance of 181.5 km.
The first few stages of the Tour are always dangerous
since everyone is pumped
full of nerves and adrenaline. And when you have
200 riders in one large mass,
all fighting for the front to keep out of danger
and away from any crashes that
the first few stages are usually fraught with,
chaos is bound to happen. Today
adds some extra danger in that a large part of
the stage runs right along the coast
which could add some weird cross winds and damp
on the course.
There is currently a four man breakaway which
is 4 min ahead of the main
peleton that is starting to get reeled in with
70 km to go to the finish. The hardest
thing this year is trying to differentiate Team
Discovery with their silver and blue kits
from the rest of the pack. In years past the
USPS team was easy to see, known as
the Blue Train in their navy blue, trimmed in
red and white. But this year the same
color of blue that Team Discovery has, is on
several teams. VERY annoying.
Lance is wearing the green sprint points jersey
today even though he is second in
that category since Zabriskie has the yellow
and green, but can't wear two at the
same time. Good thing, as it makes him easy to
spot.
7:04am - The first small crash toward the back
of the peleton when too many
riders try to all fit into the same space on
a tight narrow turn. Lance was up front,
so no worries. The breakaway lead has shrunk
to 2'15". 6k to the finish the
breakaway has been caught, but after Thomas Voeckler
won the king of the
mountains jersey for tomorrow.
1k and all hell breaks loose and the sprinters
go insane. Tom Boonan wins
the stage, with a small crash at the back of
the peleton. Final standings: David
Zabriskie (USA - CSC) still in yellow, with Lance
2" behind, and the closest
main rival to Lance, Vinokourov, 53" behind in
4th. George Hincapie,
Lance's teammate in 5th at 57".
Tally