These Guys Are Good!

I missed a day in my Tour de France coverage, and it was a good day. Yesterday the stage was very windy and the last portion was very flat. There was a long break away by 4 riders from the very start of the race. They led by as much as 13 minutes, but that lead was reduced significantly by the 25 km to go mark. It was shortly after this mark where Team Columbia HTC made a break. They had their whole team setting pace on the front of the peloton and made a huge acceleration with about 18 km to go. The move caught more than half of the racers sleeping, only 25 or so managed to make escape from the group and chase down the 4 leaders. The windy conditions made it impossible for the rest of the group to follow and a huge gap opened up. Among the lead group was Lance Armstrong, Fabian Cancellara, Thor Hushovd, and Mark Cavendish. The riders quickly caught the 4 leading riders and blazed their way to the finish. In the end it was an amazing sprint finish with Cavendish beating out Thor Hushovd at the finish. That win was Cavendish's 15th win out of 18 sprints this year. That is amazing. Another amazing part of the day is that Armstrong, by securing a place in the break away, pulled himself up to number 3 in the general classificaion. I may have spoken too soon yesterday in saying it'd be hard for him to place this year.

Today's stage was the team time trial, new this year, which was reinstated after a 3 or 4 ear hiatus. Armstrong, in pre-race interviews, stated that he thought that his team (Astana) had a great shot at winning the race, meaning that Armstrong could move up even further in the GC. But at the same time he was a bit reserved about predicting that he would be riding in yellow tomorrow. The team time trial is a really fn event to watch because each team goes as hard as they can, sometimes even losing their own riders off of the back of their group. The fast speeds also meant a lot of accidents today. The most impressive ride of the day I would say goes to Garmin Slipstream who rode most of the stage with only 5 team members, the minimum number of riders that must cross the line to stop the time. Doing this, they still posted the 2nd fastest time. The story of the day however has to be Team Astana and Lance Armstrong. By winning the stage and beating Cancellara's team by 40 seconds, Armstrong moves up into a tie for first place in the GC!! Amazing! Although the yellow jersey was awarded to Cancellara due to a few tenths of a second difference, Armstrong shares the top time and position with him. I definitely didn't expect Armstrong to do so well. I don't think anybody did.

Then for team Astana, they hold places 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 in the GC. 7 of their riders in the top 20. Of course this will change over the rest of the race, but they rode an amazing time trial. These guys are really good!