Wihout any doubt,'quiet' is the perfect word to describe the first two days that Andy Schleck spent with the Tour de France yellow jersey on his shoulders.Over the last two days he was even seen while carrying water bottles for his teammates (!) and he was also spotted while chatting quietly with Contador.To la Gazzetta dello Sport,however,he said that he isn't going to reveal what the topic of his chat with the Spaniard was.According to a blog post that I've just read,anyway,the two champions talked about holidays (something to do with Curaçao,Fangirl wonders?).During today's stage Andy also talked with sir Lancelot ("He gave me one of his yellow bracelet for free",he told the journalists) and,after it,he said that tomorrow's going to be a hard day "because of the heat and of the parcours: the last climb will create gaps between the GC contenders".Therefore,tomorrow we'll have to pay attention to Contador and also to Joaquim Rodriguez, who could go for a stage win.
Talking about today's stage,we must say that it created at least one change in the GC: in fact,Adriano Malori isn't the lanterne rouge of the race anymore.This honour in fact went to Anthony Roux,who this morning stated that,rather than being penultimate,it was better to be the last rider of the GC.
Another change that happened during,sorry,after today's stage instead regards HTC Columbia. In fact Mark Renshaw was ejected from the Tour because his behaviour during the sprint was considered very dangerous by the race jury.I agree with this decision,since firstly Renshaw hit Dean with his head 3 times and then he disturbed Farrar during the sprint.I don't think Farrar lost the sprint because of that,but I do believe that Renshaw's behaviour was terribly dangerous (I don't want to imagine what could have happened if Dean had crashed at that point of the race).However I'm sorry for Mark since he usually is a correct rider and also because now he risks to enter Cycledom history because of this bad episode rather than for his riding skills.As well as that,he's probably feeling a bit depressed right now.
Obviously after the stage both Renshaw and Cavendish complained about the jury's decision. Anyway,considering that Chris Froome was kicked out of the Giro because he had been helped by a car during the Mortirolo stage,I think that for Renshaw that was the only possible punishment.
Today's winner however was Mark Cavendish,who outsprinted Petacchi and Farrar.Petacchi also got the green jersey,which hasn't been won by an Italian rider for the last 43 (if my memory doesn't fail me) years.Therefore,allez Ale!
Talking about Lampre's riders,it seems that also Cunego would like to fight for a jersey and,to be more precise,it looks as if he'd like to wear the polka dots jersey in Paris.Talking about Damiano's future,then,it looks as if he might end up riding for Liquigas,Garmin,Sky or Saxo Bank next year.
As far as yesterday stage is concerned,it was a very quiet day at the office for most of the riders.Paulinho won a 2 men sprint against Kiryenka and so he got the first important victory for RadioShack,while the peloton finished the stage at about 6.15 pm. In a few words,they took it easy.Extremely easy.And this gave Rai's journalists the chance of reviewing some past events of Cycledom connected with the city of Gap.
They started with 1972 World Championships.That edition of the Worlds is particularly famous in Italy not because Marino Basso won it,but because Franco Bitossi (last Italian green jersey of Cycledom) lost it with about 10 meters to go.Poor Bitossi every year has to stand phone calls from people who want him to describe how it felt to lose a Championship in that way and is more famous for that defeat than for his victories (which were more than 150).
Then,obviously,everyone yesterday remembered 2003 Tour de France stage ending in Gap,during which poor Joseba Beloki ended his career and Armstrong put on a great show by cutting across a field.Eventually,the stage winner was a happy Vinokourov.
Finally,Rai journalists ended up with phoning a famous autograph collectionist to ask him how much a signed picture of Davide Cassani (Rai chronist and former rider) costs.The answer was "About 90 euros".This gave everyone an occasion to tease Cassani and the other former riders who work for Rai.After all, heat creates problems not just to the riders,but also to the journalists and chronists who work for the Tour.
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