Crashes late in the stage see many race favourites lose time
Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) seized the stage win and the first yellow of the 2011 Tour de France at the top of the Mont des Alouettes, in a result that has been predicted by virtually everybody in the sport since the Belgian champion announced his intention to ride the race. 2009 World champion Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) finished just three seconds behind Gilbert, having almost caught the Belgian in the closing metres of the climb, with current World champion Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervélo) taking third, another three seconds later.
“I dream of winning big races like Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallonne but to win here in the Tour de France is something special,” said Gilbert after his victory. “It is another dream. I’ve never won any stages. I’ve never had this yellow jersey before so, for me, it’s a very good day.
“Yesterday evening I was talking with my room-mates and saying that, on the steep part of the hill with a little more than one kilometer to go, we would have to pull very hard and that I’d need somebody there with me,” he explained.
“We knew that Cancellara would go there because it was a perfect place for him – with his big power, he can come from behind – and it’s exactly what happened. I was ready to react and I never panicked, I just moved near to him and rode behind for a moment.
“When he stopped his effort I told myself, ‘I cannot hesitate any more.’ I had to go then,” he added. “It was still a long way away, about 500 meters, but I thought, ‘No I have a small gap and I have to go – full gas!'”
Crashes in the closing kilometres of the stage saw a number of favourites caught behind splits in the peloton, losing several seconds on their rivals for the yellow jersey.
A local ceremony is followed by a local attack
The race began with a ceremonial processional ride from the town of Fromentine, on the French mainland, crossing the road bridge to the Île de Noirmoutier. The peloton then crossed the notorious Passage du Gois, but the cobbled causeway had no chance to affect the race as it had done in the 1999 Tour as it the peloton continued its pedestrian speed, before stopping where it joined the mainland for a ceremonial ribbon cutting ceremony.
As soon as race director Christian Prudhomme dropped the flag to commence hostilities in the 2011 Tour de France, an attack was launched by Perrig Quemeneur from the locally based Europcar team. He was joined by Jérémy Roy (FDJ) and Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM) and the break of the day was formed.
After 4km the three of them had already opened up a lead of 2’15”, with the peloton clearly content to take it easy in the early kilometres.
Crashes strike the nervous peloton as the break’s advantage yo-yos
After around 15km the trio’s advantage had grown to 6’45”, before Garmin-Cervélo, HTC-Highroad and Omega Pharma-Lotto came to the front of the peloton and began to bring it down. The low speed of the peloton though saw a small crash at the back, involving last year’s polka-dot jersey winner Anthony Charteau and Pierre Rolland (both Europcar), Andrey Amador (Movistar); AG2R La Mondiale leader Nicolas Roche was also delayed by the crash, but all riders managed to remount and join the back of the peloton.
After 35km, with the three strong teams on the front, the gap had come back down to just over five minutes, and it continued to fall gradually.
As the peloton crossed the seaside resort of les Sables d’Olonne crash after around 65km, Jurgen Van De Walle (Omega Pharma-Lotto) overlapped the rear wheel of Lithuanian champion Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Cervélo) as he was signalling to warn everyone behind him of a traffic island in the middle of the road. The Belgian came down hard on the right hand side of the road, bringing down or delaying a number of other riders.
Tejay Van Garderen and Matt Goss (both HTC-Highroad) were the highest profile riders to be affected, but their team dropped back to pace them back on and the pace at the front slowed to allow them to rejoin. The gap to the leaders went up slightly as the peloton reorganised itself.
The new points allocation ignites interest in the intermediate sprint
With the reorganisation of the green jersey points system this year, the Intermediate sprints carry extra significance. It was obvious that the first three places in the sprint at Avrillé after 87km would go to the breakaway, but with points on offer down to fifteenth place, the sprinters teams began to organise themselves at the front.
HTC-Highroad stationed itself at the front for Mark Cavendish, but as the sprint came closer the Lampre-ISD team of defending green jersey champion Alessandro Petacchi came forward on the opposite side of the road. There followed a battle for supremacy between the two teams, while Omega Pharma-Lotto and Quick Step were also making their presence felt.
As Lieuwe upped the pace on the approach to the line, Roy attacked to take the maximum points, with the Vacansoleil-DCM rider following over in second, ahead of Quemeneur.
The battle at the front was now between Omega Pharma-Lotto and Lampre-ISD, but HTC-Highroad took over as the peloton approached the line. Mark Renshaw led out Cavendish as he has done so many times before, but the Manx Missile seemed to want to take the sprint without making a full effort and he was overtaken by a burst from Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo).
On the wheel of Farrar was André Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Cavendish was swamped by a number of others.
Omega Pharma-Lotto wants the stage but doesn’t want to do all the work
The flurry of activity meant that the gap to the three leaders had come down to just 2’40”; the peloton was in no mood to catch them yet though, and, as Leopard Trek took over on the front, their advantage slipped out to over 3’30” once more as the stage entered its final 100km.
The peloton sat up almost completely, with World champion Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervélo) coming to the front to have a chat with Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and the gap went up to more than 4’30”.
As the peloton approached the feedzone though, the entire Omega Pharma-Lotto team came to the front – Van De Walle with a big hole in the left shoulder of his jersey from his crash – and within a few kilometres they had cut the gap down to just 3’30”.
As the race entered the final 80km, the gap had been reduced to lead than three minutes as the Belgian team was clearly determined to deliver the stage for Gilbert.
Suddenly though, with just over 75km to go, Gilbert slipped to the back of the peloton and Omega Pharma-Lotto, who clearly did not intend to do all of the work, switched off the pacemaking. As a number of riders stopped at the side of the road for a ‘natural break’, there was a sudden slowing in the middle of the bunch; nobody appeared to go down though, but as the speed dropped to less than 30kph the breakaway’s lead began to shoot up again; with 70km to go it had risen to 5’33” once more.
Garmin-Cervélo joins the chase and yet more crashes strike
As the trio’s advantage began to grow and grow, a number of teams agreed to send men to the front to help in the chase. Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervélo) came forward to help Van De Walle, with riders from other teams also helping out. With 60km to go, the gap was down to a little over four minutes, but it was falling at a much steadier pace this time.
Over the course of the next 30km, the peloton continued to chip away at the lead of the three fugitives; there were more small crashes along the way, involving riders like Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Linus Gerdemann (Leopard Trek) and Pablo Urtusun (Euskaltel-Euskadi), but nobody was seriously hurt and everybody managed to rejoin the peloton.
With 30km to go the trio’s lead was down to a minute, as Omega Pharma-Lotto and Garmin-Cervélo continued to set the pace. On the wide straight road with 22km to go, the peloton had them in sight, just 30 seconds ahead; the pace dropped out of the chase though, but making the catch in the next few minutes was now inevitable.
Under the 20km to go banner, the gap was down to 11 seconds, and they were finally snared with just under 19km to go. This was a little early though, and the peloton was now vulnerable to counter attacks.
As the break is caught the speed goes up and disaster strikes
Now that Quemeneur had been caught, Europcar moved to the front of the peloton and started to lift the pace. The local team was clearly keeping the speed high to prevent any further breakaways and set it up for their team leader: former French champion Thomas Voeckler.
With 10km to go the team in green and black was still in control, but HTC-Highroad, Omega Pharma-Lotto were hovering behind them.
With just over 9km to go disaster struck the peloton as an Astana rider hit a spectator, who was leaning too far into the road, and brought down almost three-quarters of the peloton. The front of the peloton was unaffected by the incident though, and the pace continued under the impetus of Europcar. Seeming to realise that a number of race favourites were caught behind though, BMC Racing moved forward and ramped the pace up even further.
Among those in the second group, which was 32 seconds behind with 5km to go, was defending champion Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard). The Spaniard only had Richie Porte with him, who was burying himself to close the gap, but his rivals were doing the same to prevent him from getting back on.
Gilbert’s team winds up the pace and the result is inevitable
Into the final 2km, on the approach to the climb André Greipel wound up the pace at the head of the Omega Pharma-Lotto team.
Another crash in the front group thinned it further; as it was inside the final 3km though, everybody involved was given the same time as the rest.
A Katusha rider was the first to attack, but he was quickly reeled back by Jürgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto), who had Gilbert on his wheel. Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana), who had not suffered the fate of his team in the big crash, then made his move, but the Kazakh veteran was unable to get far.
With 700 metres to go Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek) launched one of his trademark huge late attacks and got a massive gap. The climb was a little too much for the big Swiss champion though, and he was reeled in with apparent ease by Gilbert.
The Belgian champion strikes, but has he gone too early?
The Belgian champion looked over his shoulder, as if wondering where the rest of the peloton had gone, before launching his own acceleration with 500 metres to go. Suddenly the peloton was transported back to the Ardennes Classics as it watched Gilbert disappear over the hill, but even he seemed to be fading a little as Evans launched himself from the front of the chasing pack.
The Australian was steadily reeling Gilbert in but the line arrived just in time and Gilbert sat up to kiss his driekleur jersey as he crossed it alone.
As was his aim, Gilbert takes the yellow jersey with a three second lead over Evans, and a six second lead over a select group. The big loser on the day though was Contador, who lost 1’20” to Gilbert and almost as much to a number of his chief rivals.