Tour de France Stage 8 Recap – Heartbreak in the Alps

Sunday’s Stage 8 of the Tour starting in Les Rousses, France just to the west of Lake Geneva and heading some 189 kilometers (117+ miles) to a brutal climb up to the Avoriaz Resort of Morzine in the Haute-Savoie Region, started off like a normal albeit major climbing stage.  Some rider anxiety mixed with concern and doubt regarding the first real mountain test of the Tour amped the tension levels a bit with many riders having potentially a lot to gain, a lot to learn, and perhaps a lot to prove.  With expectations running high for fan favorites there were predictions galore from armchair followers to career handicappers trying to make some sense over just what the outcome might be.  There’d been little information to work with up to this point on competitor fitness levels for the mountains as the main GC contenders had not been forced to tip their hands given the flat stages contested thus far.

The main test of the day would be the finish, a category 1 climb that would be over 13 kilometers uphill with an average grade of 6.1% to the finish.  However, everyone had to pedal over 4 other categorized climbs and 175 kilometers just to get to the foot of that last obstacle, with 2 category 4’s a category 3, and a very difficult category 1, the Col de la Ramaz, 1,619 meters high, 14.3 kilometers long, with an average grade of 6.8%, with some sections topping out around 10% – no picnic.  Team RadioShack surely knew it would be tough, but then it would be tough for the whole peloton, around every twist and turn, up and down every climb.  With the management’s attention to detail, the rider’s training regimen and the team’s overall renowned strategic prowess they would have planned for every contingency and been ready for every conceivable outcome.  Unfortunately, what was to come was…inconceivable.

At the start and for a long part of the day, 7 riders got quite a bit of time on camera breaking away from the pack and at points getting over 7 minutes on the main field as they attempted to defy the cycling gods with the hopes of snatching a victory from the main GC teams who they hoped might be more intent on beating each other than focusing on them.  Cofidis had two in the break Sébastien Minard and Amaë Moinard, Rabobank had Koos Moerenhout, Caisse d’Epargne – Rui Alberto Faria, Ag2r – Christophe Riblon, OmegaPharma – Mario Aerts, and Française des Jeux – Benoît Vaugrenard, stayed away almost all day.  However, as can be the case on a serious mountain stage, while the big names were focusing completely on putting serious time on each other the break riders would be somewhat unintentionally swept up and tossed side in the effort.

Though the first 4 categorized climbs were challenges for everyone particularly with the relentless temperatures – water poured over helmets and necks was constant – as predicted it was the final climb where the fireworks were concentrated.  With enough downhill runs and spacing between the other climbs for gapped riders to catch up there was little point to be gained by the big guns in expending any effort to distance their rivals prior to that point.  The handicappers got that right.  Andy Schleck, Samuel Sanchez, Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Levi Leipheimer, Ivan Basso, Denis Menchov, Carlos Sastre, Andreas Klöden and others played a cat and mouse game to the summit with Andy just nipping Sanchez for the victory 10 seconds in front of a pack that included Contador, Evans, Leipheimer, Basso, Menchov and Sastre.  Klöden, coming in a very respectable 1:14 behind for 16th place.

Surely the story of the day for some was that Contador did not seem to be able to answer the young Schleck brother’s attack and this may portend a much different outcome than the ‘sure money’ predicted.  For others, the story on the day was that for the first time since Tom Boonen, the World Road Racing Champion is wearing the maillot jaune instead of the rainbow jersey and many an Australian hope is magnified this evening knowing that BMC’s Cadel Evans is riding stronger and more confidently than he has in years.  After his 2, second place finishes; this year may be his destiny.   Still others must be touting their relatively unstoried heroes like OmegaPharma’s Jurgen Van Den Broeck, 4th place in the GC right now, Garmin-Transitions Ryder Hesjedal, 6th place, Liquigas’ Roman Kreuziger, 7th place, and HTC-Columbia’s Michael Rogers, 10th place, as names that demand more attention, now and in the immediate future of major stage racing.  Those are all important stories, true and good.  If only anyone of them were thee main story of the day.  For RadioShack fans, for Lance Armstrong fans, for many who follow pro cycling around the world these other stories were almost insignificant to the heartbreaking story that unfolded on this beautiful, hot Sunday afternoon on the 11th of July, in the Rhone Alps Region of France.  The real story was the implausible, unpredictable, inconceivable sequence of accumulated events that led to this race’s only 7-time champion being forced to concede that his podium chances at this, his final Tour de France are now shattered.

Lance was caught up in 3 separate crashes in this stage, adding to other falls previously that dashed his overall general classification placement.  Two that may have seemed inconsequential to many and one that was undeniably GC cancelling.  But still he battled right to the end.  Lets review, though maybe you’ve already seen and read about these more than you care to.  In the first crash Lance employed his mountain biking skills to avoid an odd middle of the pack, high-speed incident that took down several riders very hard.  He hit the skids quickly and steering to the left went onto a grass embankment, skirted a road sign and edging back onto the road slowly avoided the much worse fate of several other riders near him.  Didn’t look like much, but Lance had to expend energy and time to recatch the fortunate few at the front that didn’t even see what happened.

The next crash was likely the deciding one.  Going around a carrefour into a tight funnel Lance went down very hard.  At high speed, still clipped into his pedals he was upside down on the pavement, going faster on his back than some of the pedaling peloton.  There’s an amateur video posted online that is painful to watch.  Lance later estimated he was moving at about 60 to 65 kilometers an hour.  He burned off flesh and several bits of his uniform that would later look as if he’d been through a war.  He was hurt at this point.  Lance doesn’t show hurt.  No one would know till later.  The team car was close.  The professionals that they all are, the mechanics, the coaches, the riders, they did everything humanly possible, relatively calmly picking everything up, waiting for direction, ready to push forward fast to get their guy back in contention.  They got Lance a new bike in seconds.  They surrounded him with the best support riders in the peloton- 5 members of the team.  Having been in the car with Johan Bruyneel in the past and seen him in action, I have no doubt that they had the best coach in cycling instantly accessing the situation, Lance’s condition, and their best strategy moving forward past this incident.  But they couldn’t manage or pedal their way out of the box they were in.  Given where the fall occurred in this difficult stage, the damage it had done, and what would be required to bridge back to the pack, just before the final climb, things were starting to look difficult.  But, if the pack in front didn’t surge ahead, you couldn’t know for sure your chances so you had to go flat out, bridge up and hope for the best.  There’d be a surge.

Once again, Yaroslav Popovych proved his metal and commitment and completely spent himself on the dig to get his team’s leader back to the main bunch.  Gregory Rast was there, Sergio Paulinho pulled, and Janez Brajkovic did an excellent job, and sure enough, the pack was eventually caught as the final climb began up to Morzine-Avoriaz and Lance was seemingly right with the contenders.  Lance didn’t show pain or any difficulty…he’s not known for that.  But then, inconceivably, Lance was caught up in another crash.  Two Euskaltel riders on either side of Lance appeared to go down and he had absolutely nowhere to go.  He tried to stay upright, but the riders on his left came down hard and knocked his bike out from under him.  Once this was sorted out, more precious time up the difficult climb was lost.  Chris Horner was there along with Janez hoping against hope that they could defy odds and gravity and somehow deliver their champion back to the front, but that would not happen.  They are not to be faulted for not completing this task.  It was not possible.  It was over.

There are hundreds of cameras – still and video – at any given time officially devoted and licensed to covering the Tour being operated everywhere but most prominently on the back of on-route motorcycles, roaming the length and breadth of the peloton on any given day trying to capture events close-up as they unfold so there is a visual record of the important achievements and incidents in this historic race.  When a heroic or uplifting event occurs it’s great that there’s a visual record to capture it for posterity.  But, when Lance’s heartbreaking misfortune unfolded, the dogged, unrelenting cameras glued to this champion’s face as he climbed up the final mountain, with Janez Brajkovic at his side the whole way, presented the single most difficult images to witness for any of Armstrong’s true fans and you wished for once the cameras would just go away.  There was one image of Lance shaking his head with a grimace that probably said volumes to many, with no doubt lots of different interpretations.  Not sure what yours was, but to me he was thinking something like this: “you can only prepare mentally and physically for so much.  When an avalanche of bad comes your way, the best you can hope for is to stay upright, keep pedaling, and finish the race.”  Lance is upright.  He’s still pedaling.  And he WILL FINISH THIS RACE.

The key contenders in this year’s Tour de France have been handed a gift.  A major rival has been removed, not by them but by a perfect storm of accumulative collisions and falls.  And let me just add, for those that didn’t believe Lance was a serious GC contender in the first place – you don’t know your cycling.  A healthy Lance Armstrong, showing increasingly stronger form in his previous two races coming into this event, put serious fear in this year’s GC contenders.  It wasn’t a gracious nod to the past when his name came up in literally everyone of the interviews of the key challengers of the TDF as they were being asked who they considered to be their main opponent.  However, now, unfortunately not even a Lance Armstrong can overcome a 13:26 deficit at this stage in the race.  No one could.  He will not be stepping up on that podium in Paris.  And this race will be lesser, for it.

You can read countless recaps elsewhere on who finished where and what the general classification looks like going into Tuesday’s second mountain stage from Morzine-Avoriaz to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.  I’ll not go into that here – my heart’s not into it right now.  But even with the horror of the last few days, one bit of information shines to the fore.   RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer is in 8th right now; 2:14 back from the leader Cadel Evans.  Levi’s a better climber than most in this current top 10 and on a good day he can beat the entire field in a time trial.  This crazy race isn’t over yet, and Team RadioShack still has an amazing team!  There’ll be a bunch more great cycling between now and the Champs-Elysées circuit on the 25th of July and with all the weird episodes so far the one thing you can count on, the podium is nowhere near decided.  If you’re still reading this long piece, you shouldn’t need another reason to tune in to the final stages of this event.  You’re a fan!  But here’s one more reason.  With every pedal that Lance Armstrong initiates in the coming days, cycling history will be made.  Consider yourself fortunate to be given a chance to be witness to it.

By George Hurst, staff writer