TdF Stage 6 Recap, You Can’t Do This Without Support!

At noon today in Montargis, France, one hour south of Paris, the longest stage of the Tour de France took off in hot weather, which promised only to get hotter on the long road to Gueugnon, France some 227.5 kilometers (141 miles) away.  How hot?  It appeared to peak at about 36 Celsius, that’s 97 Fahrenheit.  Though billed as a relatively flat sprinter’s stage there were several category 4 climbs on the day, one going 349 meters uphill climb, the next at 305, a 425 and a 418 meter bump that, though thankfully not too steep nor too trying, still kept everyone going up and down all day.  The main obstacles on the day were not the hills, but sun beating down and the amount of time the riders had to stay out on the pavement absorbing the blacktop’s super heated reflections – which surely climbed passed 100 F at several points.

A few teams, with not much else to gain, once again rolled the dice and spit out some breakaway riders early on that lasted for a very one time.  The 3 riders in the break were Caisse d’Epargne’s Mathieu Perget, Euskaltel’s Ruben Perez, and OmegaPharma-Lotto’s Sebastian Lang.  They worked fairly well together, but the peloton started eating up their time gap as usual as the finish line started showing up in the team car’s GPS’s.  A couple of other riders bridged up from the pack with the hope that 5 riders working in tight unison could beat 184 other riders in the slipstream.  The math and ultimately the underlying motivations of the pack did not pan out for the break.  At about 9.5 kilometers from the end they were consumed and it would end up being the bunch sprint that many predicted.   Maybe a break can win a stage later in this Tour but right now, things look just a bit too well managed for that to happen.

Mark Cavendish of HTC-Columbia won his second consecutive stage today proving that Stage 4 was a fluke and he’s still got his jet engines primed and cocked for blast off.  He looked confident and invincible again.  But have you ever watched what Mark does right after every major stage win?  First thing, he seeks out his teammates for a big bear hug and a bigger thank you.  The uninitiated might think he’s being overly gracious; he’s the fastest sprinter on the planet right now, no one pedaled his bike for him, why’s he spreading so much joy instead of jumping on the podium and claiming the prize that he alone earned?  Simple answer, cause he didn’t earn it alone.  You can’t do this stuff without support.  Sure, you have to pedal your bike as far as anyone else, everyone had to stay upright along the same distance today and find a way to beat the heat for the longest tour stage.  But if you’re not ‘sucking’ teammates wheels, having folks bring you water, having a whole team focused on one objective at times, the deed doesn’t get done.  It’s odd that something that looks so individualistic is probably the most organized professional team sport there is requiring great sacrifices by others members to better the chances of the selected few, in some stages the selected one.

In Cavendish’s case it’s the master craftsmanship of Mark Renshaw, right now, easily the best leadoff man pedaling a bike.  Renshaw is a great sprinter in his own right capable of winning on his own at times.  But he knows that if he works with the ‘Missile’ together they can produce far greater results.  Cavendish trusts him implicitly.  He tucks in on his tail and allows Renshaw to dictate the flow, the line, the wattage, and the timing…right to the point when the afterburners need igniting.  That’s when Cavendish knows he’s been delivered to the promised land by a rider with such gifts he’d likely be ‘the’ sprinter on many other teams.  Cavendish wins because Renshaw and the team support him.  Doesn’t happen without them.  No one does this on their own.  Same with all the big riders on all the teams.  You simply cannot get there, from here, without them.

RadioShack has very powerful support riders.  That’s maybe the biggest understatement one can make.  Some of these guys will no doubt become the stars of the future on this team, and the way the cycling winds blow, unfortunately, some will splinter off and become major riders for other squads competing against their former mates.  That is the way of professional sport and exemplifies the deep bench that Team RadioShack currently has.

With all this great support there continues to be one major standout among the super domestiques at this year’s Tour worth giving some extra attention to such as, Yaroslav Popovych, the 30-year old rider from the Ukraine that quietly teaches all of us, time and again, what it means to be a team player.  If you know of Yaroslav at all, you probably remember him from the dramatic pulls he’s made on behalf of Lance Armstrong (and Contador) up many major mountain climbs throughout the years when there was a lot on the line.   If you’ve been watching this Tour, you saw him help Lance salvage July after a puncture on stage 3 looked impossible to overcome.  But what you might not know is that he’s an amazing cyclist in his own right – you have to be to support a GC contender on this team.

What kind of resume do you need to apply for this job?  A small synopsis.  Popovych was the Under-23, World Road Race Champion in 2001.  He has podiumed at the Giro d’Italia, 3rd place, in 2003.  Came in 5th place the next year.  He took the white jersey in the Tour de France in 2005.  He’s had stage wins in major races, and won major races, he’s won stages in the Tour de France, heck he’s finished 8th and 12th in the GC of the Tour de France!  He’s a sought after talent that can ride with the best and has enough experience and cycling intelligence to know that this is the team and this is the time.  Team RadioShack is blessed to have this guy, and it’s a treat and a wonder to watch one of today’s major talents on a bike, let the peloton go by several times in a stage, load up his jersey with water, drive forward in the peloton, hand a drink to a teammate, and without words wish him well.  This is a squad full of champions!

Lots of pedaling between Gueugnon and Paris.  Lots of predictions will be made and forgotten as a grueling tour continues along another 2400-plus kilometers to its conclusion along the Champs-Elysées circuit on Sunday July 25th.  One truth will remain.  The man that gets to the line in Paris in the least amount of time will not have done it on his own.  He will have done it with the support of the likes of Yaroslav Popovych, my nomination for the support rider of the decade.

Tomorrow we climb!  Not deemed a mountain stage by some, I beg to differ.  We have two 3-category climbs, one 4-category climb, and three 2-category climbs, with the final one being a mountain finish up the Côte de Lamoura, 1,145 meters up.  Drive your car up that route and tell me this isn’t mountain stage!  Will any of the main contenders make a serious attempt tomorrow?  Likely not, but there’ll be some testing.  The young climbers can’t help but play their hand to see who follows.  Don’t over plan your day, you’ll want to watch some of this.

Stage 6 results

By George Hurst, staff writer