Pointy Helmet’s Tour de France commentary: Stage 14.

Today was a very unusual stage.  Not because of the stage profile, but because of the theatrics during and after the stage.  What was not surprising is that Lance was involved.  What was surprising was that George Hincapie was involved.

Here’s what happened: a breakaway of 12 riders gets away, including George Hincapie, who rides for Team Columbia. Hincapie is only 5 minutes and change off the yellow jersey. The breakaway gets a maximum lead of 8+ minutes, putting Hincapie in the virtual yellow jersey. While this is happening, Astana is riding on the front, setting what appeared to be a medium tempo–neither gaining nor losing ground on the breakaway.

With 50k to go, AG2R, the team of the yellow jersey, moved to the front and tried to up the pace. Unfortunately, they struggled and as they approached the finish line, Garmin and (oddly) Columbia set the pace.

In the end, Ivanov, the Katusha rider, won the stage.  Hincapie finished soon after with the rest of the breakaway, and 5+ minutes ahead of the peleton.  Nocentini saved his yellow jersey by 5 seconds.   Columbia’s efforts on the front to set Cavendish up for a sprint were for nothing as Cavendish ended up losing all his sprint points due to a positioning penalty

After the stage, the high school drama began:

• Hincapie blamed: Astana, for setting tempo and needlessly contributing to the chase of the breakaway
• Armstrong blamed: Garmin, for needlessly pushing the peleton toward the end
• Johan Bruyneel (Astana’s GM) blamed: Garmin, for the same reasons as Armstrong
• Johnathan Vaughters (Garmin’s GM) said: he wanted his guys on the front to avoid any back-of-pack shenanigans that have been commonplace in this year’s tour

Basically, everyone claimed that they would have loved to see Hincapie in yellow, but no one (not even his teammates) did much to help him out today.

My take on all of this is that Astana did actually contribute to the chase (despite Armstrong’s comments to the contrary).  Their “false” tempo was basically maintaining the gap between the break and the peleton.  What they could have done, if they really wanted Hincapie to get yellow, was to let AG2R take over the pacemaking much sooner, allowed them to blow (AG2R doesn’t have the firepower to bring a 12 man break back 8+ minutes), and THEN set the “false” tempo to the finish.  That would have been more effective, I think.

Also, I’m not buying Vaughters’ explanation for why Garmin was on the front late in the race.  The Garmin riders could have been *near* the front, but not *on* the front if they wanted to avoid crashes late in the race.  I’m calling BS on Garmin’s strategy.

Lastly, Columbia majorly screwed up today’s stage.  They neither got Hincapie his yellow jersey, nor Cavendish his green jersey.  Now Hincapie is pissed and Cav is almost out of the green jersey competition entirely.  Not a good day for Columbia.