Winners
Rui Costa
A superb second stage win for the Portuguese as he rode clear of his breakaway companions on the Col de la Croix Fry, quickly reeling in and passing the ailing Pierre Rolland. Looking at ease on the descent despite the heavy rain, Costa quickly established a comfortable advantage to once again arrive at the finish in glorious isolation to take the victory by almost a minute. After seeing any GC hopes disappear on the rode to St Amand Montrond when he lost almost ten minutes in support of Valverde, the 26 year old has taken advantage of the opportunities of being out of the hunt for yellow, and if nothing else has boosted his value as he looks for a new contract.
Pierre Rolland
Two days ago he was telling reporters that the polka dot jersey was out of reach, but today Rolland embarked on a classic mountain raid as he got himself in the break before setting off alone to scoop full points over the top of the Col de la Madeleine, Col de Tamie, and Col de l’Epine, also picking up the combativity award for his troubles. However, the Frenchman fell one agonising point short of overhauling Froome in the mountains classification. With fifty points available at the stage finish tomorrow, this is where the competition should be decided, and it will be interesting to see if Rolland backs himself to stay with the GC men on the final climb or looks to take off earlier in the stage. Whatever he does, the Europcar rider will not only have to keep an eye on Froome, but also Mikel Nieve, Nairo Quintana, and Christophe Riblon, all of whom have the polka dot jersey in their sights.
Daniel Navarro
Before the grand depart in Corsica I had Navarro down as having a strong chance of picking up a position in the top ten, but the Spaniard lost almost ten minutes on the stage to Ax 3 Domaines and a further five minutes on the Mont-St-Michel time trial. But after finding a place in the break today, the Spaniard has catapulted himself into ninth, leapfrogging Rogers, Valverde, Kwiatkowski, Talansky, and Ten Dam. He now has a 3:35 gap back to Kwiatkowski in tenth, and should be able to give Cofidis their first Tour top ten since Bobby Julich in 1998.
Radioshack Leopard
After spending most of the three weeks sitting dormant, the team classification always seems to sprint to life in the last few days of the Tour. Aiming to repeat their last year’s victory in this ‘race’, Radioshack put a number of men in the break, ending up placing Andreas Klöden and Jan Bakelants second and third respectively on the stage. This moved them to within 3:39 of Saxo-Tinkoff overall, who suffered with Michael Rogers losing time today. With the GC men expected to duel it out tomorrow, it will be hard for Radioshack to put themselves on the podium in Paris, but they will still look to put a number of riders in the break, perhaps more in hope than expectation.
Losers
Michael Rogers
The only real loser among the GC contenders today. The Australian lost contact early on the Col de la Croix Fry, and ended up rolling across the line in 48th place, losing four and a half minutes on the top GC guys. This meant that he dropped from eighth to fourteenth overall, and is now four minutes away from the top ten. In the grand scheme of things this may not be a big deal for Saxo-Tinkoff given their concentration on the interests of Contador, but I’m sure they Danish squad would have liked to have put three men in the top ten.
Jack Bauer
One of five men to abandon the Tour with Paris only two days away, the New Zealander crashed badly on the descent of the Col du Glandon. Bauer had already crashed once on the descent off the first climb of the day after suffering a rear puncture, and it was in his attempt to regain contact after the wheel change which saw him crash off the side of the road into a ditch, suffering bad cuts to his face after a coming together with a barbed wire fence. Riding his first Tour, Bauer will be devastated to be forced out of the race with Paris on the horizon, but I’m sure the strong and talented 28 year old will be back soon enough.
Stage 20 Preview
The penultimate stage is also the shortest road stage of the race at a measly 125 km, the race starts out from the beautiful lakeside town of Annecy before lapping the Massif de Bauges on the way to the fourth and final summit finish of the Tour at the small ski resort of Semnoz.
Mont Revard seems prominent on the stage profile, but with an average gradient of only 5.6% this should pose few problems for the GC contenders. Instead it should all be decided on the slopes up to Annecy-Semnoz, hosting its first Tour de France stage in an edition that has looked to the past much more than the future. The climb itself is tough, averaging 8.5% and with four kilometres at around 10%, this is a hard finish to one of the toughest editions of the race in recent years.
Scenario
In a race of surprises, we can probably expect an entirely predictable first 114 km as the leading contenders, apparently resigned to Chris Froome capturing the yellow jersey, look to keep their powder dry ahead of the final climb.
This should be a test of the pure climbers, so my favourites for the stage would be Joaquim Rodriguez and Nairo Quintana, the two men who have looked the strongest and the freshest over the final week. If we are to look elsewhere for a stage winner, then perhaps Mikel Nieve and Pierre Rolland could light up the final climb as both men go in search for the polka dot jersey.
However it is also difficult to write-off Chris Froome for the stage win. The Team Sky rider should confirm his overall victory at the stage finish tomorrow, and although he has not looked at his best for a couple of days, has been looking to stamp his authority on the race with every pedal stroke. Perhaps he can be the first yellow jersey to win four stages since Laurent Fignon in 1984.
Stage Win: Joaquim Rodriguez
Yellow Jersey: Chris Froome
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