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| 96th Tour de France - Stage 1 Live Part 2 |
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| By Nick Bull |
| Date: 7/4/2009 |
| 96th Tour de France - Stage 1 Live Part 2 |
| |
Tour de France 2009
Stage One: Monaco - Monaco (ITT, 15.5km)
Saturday 4th July 2009
Live Ticker PART TWO
1730 CEST - Provisional top 3 is:
1. Levi Leipheimer (Astana) 20 minutes 02 seconds
2. Tony Martin (Team Columbia) at 3 seconds
3. Lance Armstrong (Astana) at 10 seconds.
Then it's Larsson, Millar, Coppel, Monfort ...
As Séb Joly leaves the start-gate, it means we are now officially halfway through the 180-strong field in this year's Tour.
At the finish, 30th for Rosseler, a touch over a minute down on Leipheimer.
Sandy Casar hits the line, 59 seconds down on Leipheimer. He will be gunning for the top twenty again; and writing that sentence, it's clear the French need a hero. Remy di Gregorio, Pierre Rolland... hell, even Reeechard Virenque, step forward.
Bernhard Eisel crosses the line, mid-pack, with a 21'26". He's here on Cav duty, as both a trusted leadout man and a friend.
Any readers who want to donate their million-pound yacht to the Daily Peloton, feel free. E-mail us at ivegotasmuchchanceofthisasvinokourovdoesofridingthetouragain@aso.com
1637 CEST - As Jens Voigt suffers under the flamme rouge, his team-mate Chris Anker Sorensen begins his maiden Tour de France.
Voigt crosses the line in 20'54", good enough for provisional eleventh. Not too shabby for the most attacking rider in the peloton.
Jaffa cake count: 12. That's not twelve in three hours, that's 12 in eighteen minutes. I'd like to see Leipheimer beat that. It's going to be a long Tour for my waistline...
I need to keep my energy up for the coming 20 stages, what can i say.......energy bars just dont do the business
This conversation reminds me of the McDonalds sponsorship of Team Polti, circa 1997....
1740 CEST - Moinard is 33rd over the Beausoleil, 54 seconds down. He's not going to be fastest Frenchman again with that kind of ride.
The top three is still that listed above: Levi, Tony Martin, Lance....
1742 CEST - Romain Feillu leaves the start-house. We won't comment on his atrocious golden time-trial helmet, which does not go with his blue skinsuit at all. Woops.
Press stories linking Feillu to a sponsorship deal with NASA are unconfirmed....
1745 CEST - Yukiya Arashiro (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) begins his Tour. In the last 100 years, two Japanese cyclists have started the Tour (Kawamuro [1926 and 1927] and Imanaka [1996]); neither finished. This year, two are on the start-line: Arashiro and Fumi Beppu of Skil-Shimano.
1747 CEST - Giro podium finisher and time-trial winner Marzio Bruseghin gets out of the saddle.
1748 CEST - The race's youngest rider is out on course. Rui Costa of Caisse d'Epargne is just 22 years old. Baptism of fire? Well, he was second in the Tour de l'Avenir last year and won the Four Days of Dunkirk this spring.
When Formula One drivers enter and exit the Tunnel used on this TT course, their eyes experience light changes that few will ever experience. They pass through the tunnel flat out, and so in a couple of seconds their eyes have to react to changes in the environment remarkably quickly. There is no danger of this happening today, regardless of how quick anyone passes through the Tunnel....
1752 CEST - Mark Cavendish starts his race! My patriotic British heart be still...
No sign of any cigarettes - as discussed in Part One....
He's a lean, mean, sprinting machine, who just needs to not stack it on one of the corners. Cav could better his 2008 haul of four stages this time round.
1756 CEST - Good climbers comes in twos. First lanky Dutch mountain goat Robert Gesink leaves the start-house, then Frank Schleck.
Cavendish grimaces uphill, clearly enjoying this as much as a bike-pump enema.
We've all been there....struggling uphill, of course....,
1800 CEST - Now Heinrich Haussler gets his Tour underway. Could he be Cavendish's main rival in the sprints? This ain't Milano-San Remo any more, let's see what his form is like in the coming days.
1801 CEST - I'm interested to see how super-climber Gesink does in the first half of the course.
Belgian national champ and 2xTour of Flanders winner Stijn Devolder races onto the first grades of the Cote de Beausoleil.
At the finish, 30th for Rosseler, a touch over a minute down on Leipheimer.
Bruseghin hits the line for provisional 13th, 20'49". He might have been hoping for a bit better.
1807 CEST - Provisional top 3 is:
1. Levi Leipheimer (Astana) 20m02s
2. Tony Martin (Team Columbia) @ 3s
3. Lance Armstrong (Astana) @ 10s.
Mark Cavendish was 112th, 1'53" down over the first climb. Well, he just needs to make it round. You can't sprint and win if you wrap yourself around a lamp-post.
1808 CEST - Oscar Pereiro, the infamous 2006 Tour "winner". The Spaniard hasn't won anything since then; in fact, he hasn't come close to repeating that performance.
Though any ride this year, no matter how bad, will beat his 2008 Tour, where he fell heavily and broke his arm on the Col Agnel
Things are starting to hot up. An hour till the last man - Carlos Sastre - begins his race.
1811 CEST - The helicopter pans to the rocky outcrops above Monaco. That's where the rich inhabitants throw all the loafers, ragamuffins and lower-class dwellers.
1812 CEST - Only joking.
I should hope so.....
But suffice to say, Monaco is the strangest place I've been to. The place is beautiful, but some of the people? The wealth is so ostentatious, it's galling and unsettling.
Bottles of water cost around $10/£5 in Monaco.....so the UCI have banned Bidons today. Patty M, from the UCI, said Cycling shouldn't be so flamboyant and carless with during during tough Economic times, and that cyclists needs aren't that great.....
Some of the above may not be true....
1814 CEST - Dave Zabriskie opens his Tour. It hasn't quite happened for quirky DZ in recent years, but he could surprise today.
112th for Cavendish. I bet he finishes 111 places higher tomorrow.
Was it really 4 years ago since Zabriskie's win in Normandy? Wow. Let's hope he doesn't fall off in the Team Trial this time, too.
Gesink is on a decent ride, even if Martin looks a dead cert for the maillot blanc of best young rider. As he goes over the line, it's 11th for him, stopping the watching at 20'47".
Liquigas star Roman Kreuziger is tipped by many to be a top-six finisher in this year's Tour (apparantly there are odds in the UK of 40/1 of him winning the race...) He's on the Beausoleil at the moment. Andreas Kloden is about to begin his race.
Frank Schleck coming to the finish, but it's nothing special... 21'08".
1819 CEST - Czech out Kreuziger, he's looking very smooth as he goes under the 10km-to-go banner.
Kreuziger blows past minute-man Jeremy Roy and leaves him for dust as he goes over the Beausoleil summit.
He's flying! Second fastest, 3 seconds down on Martin over the top! Let's see if he can keep this going down the technical descent to the finish.
1823 CEST - French TV predicting a time of 20m03s for Kreuziger - level with Leipheiemer. This could be close!
1824 CEST - Tom Boonen leaves, he's no crack time-trialist. OK, no more cocaine jokes.
It's lucky it's not wet, as those white lines are dangerous....
1825 CEST - Kreuziger looks smooth as he carves round the bends and down towards Monaco. Four kilometres left, and it's going to be very close.
An anonymous 21'35" for Devolder at the finish.
Minute man Jeremy Roy has caught Kreuziger... maybe he isn't descending so quickly... and Roy passes him. Pauriol coming up to the finish, and it's a fine ride. 20'37" gives him seventh on the line.
1730 CEST - As Vincenzo Nibali goes down the ramp, we have only 30 riders left in the race.
Coverage continues in Part Three of the Ticker... |
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