Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

We got back to the disorganization again today. The long uphill finish suited McEwen (if I had only known) and he had a leadout guy and no one else really did. Julian Dean might have helped Hushovd but he fell down and Hushovd didn't practice safe sprinting (at least that's the story but the official standings haven't been changed at the Tour's website) so he's pretty much out of the Green Jersey chase and Robbie "The Pocket Rocket" has a pretty healthy lead. T-Bone Boonen can't seem to get the sprints right or when he does the baleful eye of the Tour glances at hime and his tire goes flat. He needs a win and soon or his morale willl start to really suffer and the breakdown will take place. He's got another chance tomorrow and the day after that and then tour's a week over and we have the long time trial. I wonder if it will require any more leaders.

Bruyneel showed his craftiness today with Martinez. He's got three riders in the top ten and two more that might be a threat. Every rider went back for bottles today so no one knows who's the leader or who feels strong or who's going in the break. At some point, like I've said before, Phonak and Gerolsteiner are going to have their hands full. If I'm Bruynell, I'm sitting around the dinner table with a smug little Belgian Mafia smile thinking of how I'm going to tear the teams who are a little thin apart with fake attack after fake attack. Sooner or later each Disco potential leader's going to make a break and pick up a few seconds. Which one do you chase if you're Landis or Levi? I'm guessing we'll see Azevedo in a break in the next couple of days. It may not go far but the sprinter's teams won't chase it down. They won't care if a Disco guy picks up 10 or 12 seconds in bonus sprint time. In fact, if he gets in a big enough break that works for McEwen because he soaks up the bonus points. So someone else has to chase and I'm guessing it's not going to be CSC. Or maybe it'll be Popo. Or both. Bruynell's got five or six guys he can play this game with and the other teams don't.

For tomorrow there will be another sprint and all the usual suspects will be involved. We move to the west coast of France and I don't expect there to be too much uphill so the pure power guys should do well. That may level (no pun intended) the field and allow the World Champion his best chance to pull off a sprint. Still, McEwen was so powerful today that's it's hard to bet against him. So...

McEwen
Hushovd
Boonen
Freire
Bennati

Zabel won't be there. He needs something more than a flat finish at this point. He's lost the snap he used to have but I expect he's a strong man now. Maybe he'll be able to show himself on the longest stage of the Tour but this may be his last chance to ride the great race. Eisel will be hanging around the top ten (much like Zabel) and Casper might do well also but things are basically about the big three plus Bennati if he doesn't end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Until then...

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