Team RadioShack’s Sergio Paulinho Wins Stage 10!

Team RadioShack’s Portuguese star, 30-year old Sergio Paulinho with an impressive display of power and intelligence, won the 10th stage of the Tour de France today beating his main rival on the course, Caisse d’Epargne’s Vasil Kiryienka by inches from the line after a very long hot day in the French Alps.  The former Olympic silver medalist’s stamina, courage, and excellent timing at the finish won the day after the breakaway he was in pushed hard ahead of the peloton for hours over a none-too-easy course featuring 3 categorized climbs, in the last of the French Alp stages smack in the middle of this year’s greatest show in cycling.

Sergio jumped into a 4-man breakaway early in the day consisting of Kiryienka, Quick Step’s Dries DeVenyns, and OmegaPharma’s Mario Aerts, and the group stayed away all day for something like 160 kilometers.  They were eventually bridged by two other riders; Maxime Bouet of Ag2r and Pierre Roland of Bbox.  These six riders were able to pull away from the rest of the peloton gaining some serious time, well over 11 minutes on the main group who seemed content to sit back and use the day as something of a rolling recuperation from the difficult previous stages of this race and the potentially more difficult climbs to come.  They knew that the highest placed rider in the field was some 32 minutes down in the general classification and as long as the break didn’t get greedy flirting with gaining an overall placement, there might just not be enough collective will to hunt them down and deny one of them the victory.

The breakaway worked very well together for the whole day, riding up and down some serious climbs and continuing to steadily gain on the field.  Sergio took his turn at the front of this group and no one can say he didn’t pull when it was his turn to keep the pack away from the peloton.  But at about 15 kilometers these fast friends started to turn on one another like all serious stage racers must, trying to see who among them had the legs to truly contest this finish.

The first to attack was OmegaPharma’s Mario Aerts, who many thought might be the best of the bunch.  His move was short lived.  Dries DeVenyns pushed forward, but he would not be decisive on the day either.  The real fireworks started when Kiryienka pushed forward with Paulinho right with him and in hardly any time at all they completely dropped the break by some 50+ seconds.  They both looked very strong and ready to pounce at any moment.  However, for a while, they worked very well together, taking turns pulling at the front, working their reserves and distancing the chasers.  But eventually, just as in boxing, no matter how well you like or have previously worked with your opponent, you know that in the end he’s trying – heck he’s paid – to take your head off!  So predictably with a few hundred kilometers to go, these new friends became mortal enemies as the finish line loomed.

Paulinho took a brief pull at the front and leaning over a bit to better hear his radio earpiece was seen taking some advice from the team car.  No doubt Johann was feeding him information about his best chances.  Kiryienka is a track star known for explosive speed.  If it came down to a tight sprint finish, Kiryienka might have the edge.  Don’t know yet what instructions were given, maybe never will, but all you could see was Sergio jamming down on his pedals as if his life depended on it.  He gapped Kiryienka by maybe 7 lengths in absolutely no time at all with the finish line in sight.  Kiryienka detonated the kind of violent outburst that only a track star possesses, but it was too late.  Sergio had timed it brilliantly and Kiryienka was left to ponder the devastating ‘what-ifs’ after such a close finish.  Sergio took the stage, pushing his bike forward at the line like an experienced track/sprint cyclist to capture the stage victory and the first Team RadioShack win at this year’s Tour de France on a course that was challenging and difficult to read.

Though not classified as a full mountain stage, this the ‘middle’ stage, contested in the middle of July had some serious climbs but their full impact was minimized by their placement toward the middle of the 179 kilometer (111+ mile) test.   The layout consisted of some 70 flat kilometers to the first climb, a category 1, then a cat 3, and then a cat 2 thrown in at about the 145-kilometer mark, with the remaining 30+ kilometers going mostly flat to a sweeping downhill finish that did not really suit many of the specialists.  It wasn’t a good configuration for sprinters; the mountains would cook away a lot of their explosiveness, nor was it well suited for pure climbers; the climbs were not that significant and the finish would allow gapped cyclists an opportunity to catch up.  With the very tiring mountain stages of the last few days and thoughts of saving legs for the Pyrénées to come, many thought it highly probable that a breakaway had a chance of succeeding.   That validity of that prediction became apparent early on.

The 14th of July is a French national holiday commemorating the storming of the gates of the Bastille Fortress-Prison, in protest of the regime of Louis the 16th by the modern French nation.  French cyclists usually get a bit more animated on this day trying hard to take the day’s stage for the host country.  This year was no exception, with 2 Frenchmen in the break of wisely chosen riders of little interest to the big overall GC challengers nullifying any real motivation for them to chase.

The break was allowed to gain steadily on the field, which departed from the town of Chambéry at about 1:00 pm, heading south past Grenoble to Gap in the southeast corner of France on roads often seen in the Criterium de Dauphine.  The peloton seemed quite content to let the breakers have their way. The top riders; Schleck, Contador, S. Sanchez, Menchov, Van Den Broeck, and the Shack’s Levi Leipheimer simply kept close watch on each other throughout their predominantly rolling rest, which ended after more than 5 hours with no change at all to the general classification.

Sergio looked calm and dangerous going up the last category 2 climb, while several others in the break were starting to show the stress of pushing so hard for so long.  As tired as they were, one felt some concern as the bunch had to negotiate a seriously technical and dangerous descent prior to the last bump in the road an uncategorized climb at about the 163 km mark.  In many places there seemed some foolish highway construction savings on cement with barriers poured only inches high looking more like curbs rather than safety restraints on tight turns abutting shear cliff drops.  Thankfully everyone got through without injury though there were some close calls.

As one might expect given the layout of today’s segment, there was no change in the time gaps of the major contenders, nor was there any change in the ‘jerseys’ but for one, the mountain climber’s polka dot jersey that went to Quick Step’s Jérôme Pineau.  Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck is still wearing the leader’s yellow jersey and also, being under 26-years old, logically, has a pretty tight grip on the white jersey as the best young rider in this race.  The Sprinter’s/Points leader’s green jersey is still on the shoulders of Cervélo Test Team’s Thor Hushovd.  And last but not least, powerful Team RadioShack is still in 2nd place on the team standings classification just behind Caisse d’Epargne.

Sergio did everything right today.  He read the terrain, his opponent’s strategy, their strength and condition at various points throughout the day, and when and where to jump when expended energy was called for to gap the dangerous riders ahead.  He displayed his enormous ability but perhaps more importantly for this win the experience he’s gained having ridden in several grand tours in the past.

It was a great performance and a great victory for him and Team RadioShack.

Tour de France Stage 10 Results

By George Hurst, staff writer