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

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Valverde is the happiest man on the planet today. He gets the win with a final 200 m sprint to pass Kim Kirchen (who ended up fourth). This is basically what I expected though I didn't foresee Kirchen being up front to contest things. Also, the Tour has claimed it's first big name victim with Mauricio Soler crashing within the last 20 km and losing 3:10 to Valverde. That's most likely the end of his GC chances though the podium might not be out of the question. My guess is that he now shifts over to trying to win the Spotty Jersey full time as a consolation prize assuming that he didn't hurt anything too badly. Ricco took fifth right ahead of Evans and Frank Schlek with Cunego, Sastre and Menchov outside of the top ten. With no time bonuses for stage placings this year, Valverde didn't get any extra time on his rivals but we'll have to see if the ASO assigns time gaps. Now the Caisse d'Epargne boys have to protect the jersey. It'll be interesting to see if they decide to protect the jersey tomorrow and up through the time trial on stage four. To me this shows that Valverde is definitely on form right now which means that Alpe d'Huez may be his Waterloo in about two and a half weeks. For today however, "Chapeau!" to Valverde's great finish.

More to Come.

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