1. Alberto Contador won the Tour de France by over 4 minutes over Andy Schleck (2nd) and teammate Lance Armstrong (3rd).
2. Mark Cavendish won SIX individual stages, but missed the green jersey, which went to Thor Hushovd.
3. The summit finish on Mont Ventoux did not provide as much drama as the Tour organizers had been hoping for.  Contador had gotten into some mountain breaks in the previous stages and put time in on everyone.  He also won the last ITT, which was mildly surprising.  By the time they reached the base of Ventoux, all Contador had to do was match any accelerations by Andy Schleck (which he did) and he had the tour in the bag.
4. Lance Armstrong demonstrated good form, especially toward the end of the tour.  He was able to hold off Frank Schleck for 3rd place with a good TT performance and by marking Frank Schleck on the slopes of Ventoux.
5. Contador demonstrated super fantastic awesome form.  He made winning the Tour by 4+ minutes look very easy.  Some suspect him of doping, but I am witholding judgment until there is actually some evidence to implicate him either way.
6. Armstrong and Contador hate each other.  This was demonstrated through Lance’s passive-agressive Twitter postings, Contador’s lack of consideration for the team (though Contador claims otherwise) and both of their post-tour remarks.
7. Armstrong is going to start his own team next year, Team RadioShack Texas Fried Chicken America Lance Armstrong.  I can name at least one person who will *not* be on the team.
8. Mark Cavendish is kind of an ass.  But he did apologize to Thor for his inappropriate remarks, so as far as I’m concerned (a) it’s water under the bridge, and (b) when you’re as good as Cavendish you can afford to be cocky.
9. The Schleck brothers are awesome.  They’re funny guys and great cyclists.  Frank won an Alpine mountain stage, and the scene at the finish line was fantastic.
10. The 2010 tour is going to be filled with drama.  Probably more drama than bike racing, to be honest.  Armstrong will be 38 and probably a bit stronger than he was this year.  He’ll be angry at Contador for being a good cyclist.  Contador will be 27 and in the prime of his career.  He’ll be hard to beat by anyone, even a motivated Lance Armstrong.

Stage 16, consisting simply of two huge climbs and descents over 160k, was less dramatic.  Though there were some attacks on the final climb, including an impressive bridge to the lead group by Lance Armstrong You-Know-Who and a decisive attack from the breakaway group from Mikel Astarloza, there were minimal changes to the GC.  The next few days should consist of Astana setting a fast tempo over the climbs to prevent any more attacks, a few GC contenders dropping out of contention, and possibly some drama on Saturday’s epic climb up to Mont Ventoux.

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.

Today’s stage 12 was unusual in that the breakaway (omigosh, wait for it) stayed away!  Evidently the sprinters’ teams were not interested in exerting themselves before the upcoming difficult stages.  Cavendish remarked after the stage that he’s now concentrating on winning the sprint in Paris, which is an understandable goal.  Nicki Sorensen put together a great attack with almost 5k to go and soloed to the finish.  Very nice.

Unfortunately, Levi and Cadel lost some GC time due to a crash late in the race.  Hopefully they can get their act together for the last week and a half of the race.

You could have fooled me though.  It was just like every single other flat Tour stage: a breakaway of between 2 and 9 riders gets away at kilometer 0, attains a lead of between 3 and 11 minutes, is brought back by the peleton with between 1 and 20k to go, and a sprinter named Mark Cavendish wins the stage.  Today it was 4 riders, 4 minutes, 2k and Mark Cavendish.

We have another thriller of a stage tomorrow, and another no-radio stage on Thursday.  It’s looking like my call of eleven stage victories for Cav may just come true at this rate!

Read it here: http://www.sportsscientists.com

The stage came down to two stories:

The first story was that of the breakaway. Nine riders got away and distanced themselves from the fracturing peleton. One of those riders, 24 year old tall Frenchman Brice Feilieu, held on to win the first Tour de France stage of his promising career. his older brother, the (currently) more well known Roman Feilieu, finished in the grupetto and was obviously elated about the victory of his teammate and brother.

The second story played out slightly further down the slip. This was the story of the GC contenders, including half of the Astana team. Cadel Evans tried several times to attack, but he doesn’t have the explosive power necessary to make a break stick, and the contenders were able to cover him each time.

Eventually, Contador got sick of the games and busted everyone’s groove up. He attacked with a few K to go and put about half a minute into the rest of the GC contenders by the time all was said and done. His move was strong, quick and decisive, and it had to have demoralized all of the other contenders.

Armstrong chose not to respond to Contador’s attack, though he appeared like he could have at least attempted a response. He instead decided to mark the other GC contenders, knowing that if he did not follow Contador then the other GC contenders would not be able to follow either. This was, in my opinion, solid team tactics and shows that Armstrong is truly here in support of the best rider, Alberto Contador.

Now, perhaps Armstrong will attack Contador later in the Tour. We’ll see. That would be exciting if he does. However, on today’s stage, he made a tactical decision to maximize Contador’s advantage, and I believe that it was a good decision. Plus, if he decides to attack later in the tour, it will be tougher for the other GC men to overcome both him and Contador.

All in all, today’s stage creates more questions than it answers. However, one thing is for sure: Contador is ready to play. And so is Armstrong. And Cadel Evans is not.

Today’s stage featured another gutsy breakaway performance, this time from David Millar. He had a minute solo on the peleton with 10k to go, but got caught with 1500 meters to the finish. Too bad really, he was riding very strong and it would have been a great moment for him.

At any rate, the stage went to the sprinters, where, on the uphill finish, it was the strength of Thor Hushovd that prevailed over some of the more agile sprinters (such as Cavendish). Cervelo Test Team’s first victory in this year’s Tour was good to see.

Tomorrow’s mountain-top finish should be the first real test for the yellow jersey contenders. Cancellara should lose his yellow jersey, and if Contador puts in the ride we all know he’s capable of, he has a very good chance of wearing yellow after tomorrow’s stage.

Also in the mix is He Who Must Not Be Named, still 0.22 seconds behind Cancellara in the GC. We’ll see if he has the ability to keep up with Contador in the mountains. I suspect he doesn’t, but if he can, it would be a stage for the ages, as if they finish together it will be He Who Must Not Be Named who dons yellow on Saturday.

The real question (at least, according to the Internet) was: would there be friction between Armstrong and Contador? As it turns out, the answer was NO (the team rode beautifully from start to finish, with Armstrong taking strong pulls and Contador taking minimal pulls as the protected leader of the team). But I could have told you that before the stage even started–it would have been stupid for the team to fracture during the TTT! Everyone loses in that situation.

With Astana’s convincing victory in the TTT today, it made it that much harder for the other GC contenders to catch the Armstrong/Contador (Armstrontador?) pairing. Though Saxo Bank’s strong showing allowed Cancellara to keep yellow, Armstrong sits in 2nd place by a fraction of a second. Contador is not far back either.

For now, Team Astana sits in an unusually commanding position (for the first week of the TdF) over the rest of the peleton. My prediction is that Cavendish will win approximately eight consecutive stages, and then Armstrontador will duke it out in the mountains. If anyone not on Team Astana wants to win this race, they’ll have to have some special moments in the mountains and the last time trial. It’s Astana’s race to lose.