Tour de Crash, 6th stage (plus three random links):

Today's stage of the TdF was won by Mark Cavendish, who found his second victory of this year Tour in the same place where he got his first win at the Grande Boucle. Cav was amazingly helped by his whole team (P. Velits, Martin, Goss, Renshaw, Goss, Van Garderen, Bak and Eisel) and managed to outsprint Petacchi and his old nemesis Greipel, who had tried to anticipate the sprint.

The Italian sprinter was particularly down after the stage: in an interview with Italian tv, not only did he sound sadder than usual (if you can imagine that...), but from his voice it sounded as if he was going to burst into tears. 'Ale, what is happening to you?', a RAI journalist asked him. Petacchi didn't answer immediately, but then he said: 'I don't know'. A few seconds later, the journalist ended the interview by saying: 'Sorry, but this is a very hard moment for Alessandro'. We couldn't see the images of what was happening, but I suspect that Ale actually started to cry. And all because of that stupid rule approved by the Italian Cycling Federation. Absurd.

Back to the sprint, it must be said that Chateauroux is a friendly pace for sprinters. In 1998 it was Cipollini who won a stage there, whereas in 2008 the French town witnessed the rise of Mark Cavendish. On both occasions, Erik Zabel was one of the toughest adversaries for the two eventual winners (he was 2nd in 1998 and 3rd in 2008).

Unfortunately, this stage gave us strong emotions not only during the sprint, but also in the last 35 kms of race. ''How nice! Why do you say 'unfortunately', then?'', I hear some of you ask. Well, the problem is that those emotions were produced by different crashes which involved many different riders.

A few kms after the beginning of the race, the first sad moment arrived when Boonen decided to give in and abandon the Tour. Too much sufference for the Belgian, who was really down when he had to leave the race. Hopefully, he'll be back in his top shape soon.

Then, with 35 kms to go, a very big crash (caused by the riders' lack of attention) put an end to Bradley Wiggins' dreams of glory. The English champion looked great at the start of the race, since I had never seen him so skinny (this year he weighted 2 kgs less than in 2009) and motivated. Unfortunately, for him the Grande Boucle ended on the way to Chateauroux.

Also Remi Pauriol was involved in the same crash as Wiggo and had to abandon the race. Horner, on the other hand, managed to keep on riding, although he crossed the finish-line with 12 minutes of delay. Levi Leipheimer instead had a mechanical after being involved in the crash and lost about 3 minutes in the GC. The same happened to Kreuziger.
As you can see, it was another bloody day at the office for some of the Tour riders.

Hoping to cheer you up a bit (this evening I'm in hurry), here I share with you some useful links.

http://blog.tv2.dk/chris.anker.ol/entry405528.html : as my most faithful readers already know, in July Chris Anker Sorensen writes on his blog more often than usual. Therefore, me links his blog to mine much more often than usual. In his last two posts Chris revealed us that he's rooming with Richie Porte, who teaches him a lot of Australian slang and snores a bit. Nicki Sorensen, on the other hand, is sharing a room with Brian Vandborg.

http://sansenmag.livejournal.com/: if you want to have some fun during the Tour, I suggest you taking a daily look at miss Sansen's blog. On it you can even find an exclusive list of 'who is rooming with whom' during the Tour :)

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/nicolas-roche-robbie-williams-was-in-my-room-giving-it-socks-2812834.html : thanks to miss Sansen, miss Fede has recently come across the blog of Nicolas Roche. The guy is not only good-looking - he's also very good at blogging. And yes, he can ride bikes too. In this post, Nicolas tells us about a misadventure that he had after watching 'Finding Nemo' the other evening.

Enjoy!

Remembering WW:

A little sign, after the finish-line: two hands that create a W in the air, not just once, but twice. W W : Wouter Weylandt, the Leopard Trek rider we'll all remember for our whole lives.

The first part of the third stage of the 2011 Tour de France didn't give lots of emotions to the spectators. But still, its final epilogue gave us one of the most touching moments of the year.

For most of the time, the only emotions for the supporters arrived when Gutierrez (one of the breakawayers du jour) decided to joke with the French camera man. For two times in fact the Spanish rider licked the tip of his index finger and then touched the camera lens, forcing the camera man on the motorbike to stop and clean it.

Since the race wasn't that exciting, the Italian chronists had a lot of time to talk about random things. For example, did you know that Riis complained with the jury about Contador's delay after stage one?Here's a recap of what happened.

As you all know, during stage 1 Contador lost contact from the other GC riders after the crash caused by Iglinskiy with 8 kms to go. In the end, Alberto lost about 1' 20" from the Schleck group, although Riis thinks this isn't right. According to Bjarne, in fact, Contador lost time also because of the crash that occurred with 2 kms to go, so his delay after stage 1 should have been the one that he had at the '3 kms to go' mark (43 seconds), and not the one he eventually had at the finish-line. Riis expressed his opinion to the jury, which actually didn't pay any attention to it. Therefore, Conti's delay remained of 1' 20".

Still talking about Contador, I must admit he didn't look that great in an interview he gave to Italian tv this morning. In fact, in it Alberto looked very tired and hadn't even shaved his beard. Moreover, he had a bit of acne (well, sort of) on his forehead. Now, does this mean that Conti is nervous and tired? Or is this a meaningless thing? I don't know how Alberto's skin works but, personally, I get skin problems just when I'm very nervous - and tired. Is this the same also for Bertie? Time will tell.

Back to today's stage, Beppe Saronni said on Italian tv that Alessandro Petacchi isn't feeling very well in these days. In other words: Ale-Jet has a very good form, but his morale is very low as a consequence of a rule that has recently been approved by the Italian Cycling Federation.

Said rule says that those who are banned from cycling after resulting positive at the anti-doping will never be able to take part in the Worlds and in the Italian championships anymore. 'Well, that's a nice rule!', some of you may think. 'What's the problem with it?' Well, the problem with this brand new rule is that it has a retrospective effect. This means that also riders who doped in the past won't be able to take parts in the Worlds anymore.

Amongst the guys who will never be able to take part in the Worlds anymore there are strong guys like Scarponi, Basso and Petacchi and this has obviously caused many polemics here in Italy. In fact, many people think it's unfair to prevent these riders from racing in the Worlds because:

1. when they doped, they couldn't now that they would have lost their chances of representing Italy in the Worlds

2. a rule like that exists just in Italy.

I personally believe that this rule is a very positive one, but I don't really think it should have a retrospective effect. Moreover, I think it's unfair to create it just in Italy. In fact, I don't see why Italians can't have Petacchi in the Worlds, whereas England can have David Millar in the TT and Kazakhstan can have Vinokourov in the road race.

Anyway, I was saying: as a consequence of this new born rule, Petacchi won't be able to take part in the Copenhagen Worlds (the biggest goal of this season for him) and this has really brought him down. Actually, this news has shocked him so much that Petacchi has even threatened he'll race the Copenhagen Worlds for Kazakhstan, if that rule isn't repealed in the next few weeks. Therefore, we can all understand why he isn't in a very focused mood right now.

In spite of all these problems, however, Ale-Jet was in a very good position as the peloton approached the finale of today's stage. In fact he was on Cavendish's wheel, right behind the HTC leadout train. Too bad that the HTC guys all lost themselves in the last curve of the race, so that Garmin could take the best positions at the head of the peloton. Thor Hushovd and Julian Dean did a very good job for Farrar, who eventually managed to win the stage in front of Feillu and Rojas.

As he crossed the finish-line, Tyler created a WW in the air, causing the whole word of Cycledom to get very moved.

"This has been a horrible last two months with everything that happened in the Giro," Farrar told Cyclingnews. "I've had a lot of ups and downs but in the end I wanted to come back and do something special and this is certainly the biggest stage that you can do that. I've trained hard and I could feel I was getting stronger over the last few weeks. It's a little bit unbelievable that it could happen. Everything just came together". And everything comes even more together if we think that Wouter won the third stage of the 2010 Giro, died in the third stage of 2011 Giro and that Tyler won the third stage of 2011 Tour (thanks to Marleen for making me notice this coincidence - if we can call it this way...).

On to other riders, Thor Hushovd kept the yellow jersey, whereas the green one went to Rojas. Talking about the other sprinters, Dumoulin crashed after having a collision with Oss in the last curve. The promising Galimzyanov instead was 11th.

One of my favourite riders, Chris Anker Sorensen, crossed the finish-line 4 minutes after the winner. It wasn't an easy day for Chris, since he had to work a lot at the front of the peloton in order to defend his teammates from the possible echelons. However, I must say that Sorensen also seemed to enjoy his day in the peloton. In fact, first I saw him talking to Voigt, then he rolled towards the finish-line while talking with Navarro and Hernandez (and while fighting hopelessly with his gloves :P).

On to tomorrow, the 4th Tour stage ends on Mur de Bretagne, a 2 kms climb that has some very steep parts (its first km in fact is 10% steep). Gilbert is the main favourite, although I think Cunego could do something good too.

Tomorrow we'll also have to pay a lot attention to the fight for yellow: in fact right now Gilbert (whose birhtday is tomorrow, whereas today was Gusev's birthday) has a delay of 33" from Hushovd, but Evans is just 1" down on Thor. And los Schlecks are just 4" down in the GC, just like Fuglsang and Gerdemann. 

Petacchi gets a great victory in Parma:

The first 'true' stage of the Giro had a hero: Sebastian Lang. 'What?' I hear you ask in surprise. 'Lang? Who is he? And how can he be the hero of the day if he didn't even win the stage?!?' Well, here are the answers to your questions ;)
Sebastian Lang is a 31 year-old German that rides for Omega - Pharma Lotto and this morning he went on a breakaway after just 3 kms of race. Eventually, that breakaway lasted for 215 kms.

When he attacked, the German probably thought that someone would have followed him. He waited, waited and waited, but then he realised that no one wanted to join his attack. In spite of this, he continued his action and he remained alone at the head of the race for almost 6 hours, reaching a mazimum advantage of 20 minutes of the peloton and keeping an average pace of 42 kms pro hour in the first 4 hours of race. After his loong and tiring deed, Lang received the Climber Jersey as a prize.

So, can Lang be considered the hero of the day for what he did? Imo, he can.
Talking about the stage, today the riders faced the roads that lead from Alba to Parma, two important towns that in the last century were characterised by many facts connected to anti-fascism. Alba in fact won a Gold Medal for Military Valour for the heroic activity of its citizens during the Italian resistance movement. In October 1944 in fact the town was liberated by partisans who established a Republic of Alba, which for a few weeks was able to maintain its independence from the Fascist Republic of Salò. You can find many references to this town in the works of Beppe Fenoglio, which often regard partisans. I've read just one of them ('Una questione privata') and I simply loved it.
As far as Parma is concerned, it was he hometown of Giuseppe Verdi, an Italian composer whose works were really important as far as Italian patriotism is concerned. Just think that, after the unification of Italy, people used to scream 'Viva Verdi' in order to honour Vittorio Emanuele, the king of Italy (Viva Verdi in fact meant: 'Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia').
As far as anti-fascism is concerned, in the August 1922 (two months before Mussolini took the power), the fascist officer Italo Balbo attempted to enter in the Parma quarter of Oltretorrente. However, the citizens organized into the Arditi del Popolo ("People's assaulters") and pushed back the squadristi, showing great strength and braveness. Moreover, Parma was an important Partisan center also during World War Two.

At the start of today stage there was a minute of silence in order to commemorate the 47 year-old Pietro Ferrero, who died last month. Ferrero was the son of Michele, the leader of Ferrero SpA (the Italian factory that produces Nutella and other sweets), and he was a great cycling lover. In fact, he sponsored the Giro for a lot of time.
As soon as the race began, as already said, Lang went on a breakaway and he was caught with just 26 kms to go. At that point, Farnese Vini's Leonardo Giordani attacked. He was followed by Golas, Bakelandts, Pineau, Righi, Marzoli, Vorganov and Hunter. The breakawayers forced the peloton to chase them, whereas Vorganov got angry at Righi because he wasn't taking turns at the front. Interviewed on real time about his rider's attack, Farnese's ds candidly answered that Giordani and the other ones had 'zero chance' to make it to the finish. After all, sincerity is a rare quality :P
The breakaway was caught with about 8 kms to go. At that point the fight for the first positions in the peloton became very tough. In that moment I didn't envy the race chronists at all: how can they recognise riders in sprints as messy as today's one? I would make so many mistakes if I were them!!
Btw, Petacchi was the first one to launch the sprint with 200 meters to go. Cavendish looked susprised (Renshaw looked even more astonished) and he immediately followed the Lampre rider. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough and he had to be satisfied with his second place.

Right after the finish-line, Cannonball complained about Petacchi's behaviour in the sprint. 'Petacchi is a good guy but in the last 200 metres he moved three times. The judges usually relegate someone when they do that', he told Italian tv. Petacchi, on the other hand, said he didn't do anything wrong.
Cav was still angry at the judges (who didn't relegate Petacchi) when he got the pink jersey, whereas Ale - Jet seemed annoyed by Mark's complaints.
Talking about Petacchi, I noticed that he smiles even less often than Menchov. Come on Ale, you know what they say! 'Smile at life and life will smile back at you'! You're a great champion, show a bit of entusiashm when you climb on the podium!
As far as Cavendish is concerned, instead, I noticed that he speaks Italian better than English. He had a few problems in talking (everyone kept of interrupting him), but he has a lovely English accent when he talks Italian.

Third in the sprint was Manuel Belletti, 4th was Ferrari, 5th was Bozic (he did look happy as he crossed the finish-line), 6th Appollonio, 7th was Farrar, 8th was McEwen, 9th was Weylandt and 10th was a surprising Montaguti. Talking about Farrar, he had been in a perfect position until the very end of the race, when he simply got lost in the haze.
As far as Leopard Trek is concerned, Viganò had to work for Weylandt (eventual 9th). Thomas Rohregger instead crashed together with Kiryienka. I saw some scratches on his face, hopefully it was just my imagination.
Another rider who crashed this afternoon was Vorganov, who touched wheels while he was in the same breakaway as Pineau and Giordani. The sprint, in spite of the last curves, was luckily crash-free.

So, this was todaystage: Petacchi won the stage, Cavendish got the pink jersey from Pinotti (who punctured twice during the race), Lang got the green jersey, Bjorn Selander has the white one. Tomorrow there will be another flat stage and Cav is likely to take revenge on Petacchi - but still, be careful about the other guys!

(Pic 1 by Sirotti, pic 2 by Bettini)