I think it's not just the riders who are looking forward to Monday's rest day. Can you spot the goof? The crew did and had a laugh. Earlier in the week, they also discovered they could use the big accent on the Š as a V and spell vodka. I would love to see a stage of the Tour de France sponsored by vodka!
There was one other funny oversight that was caught after a moment's reflection. If you remember back to the stage 9 post, I talked about the finish line and showed a pair of parallel cables just before the finish line. Today those cables were set up on the wrong side of the finish line–oops! It took less than a minute for them to realize their error and it was quickly remedied. No harm done.
I was super lucky today as a friend who works at the Tour gave me a wrist band allowing me access to the technical zone once again! I couldn't resist a finish line photo.
I'm fascinated by the behind the scenes stuff and I love to see the before and after differences. Below: I visitedthe media area to interview the stage and jersey winners before the stage had even started.
I got to explore Nîmes a bit last night and there are some lovely buildings and Roman ruins around town. You could just catch glimpses of the town through the trucks and race furniture.
While the stage finish in Nancy had required all of the media vehicles to be squashed in a small urban park, Nîmes offered far more more real estate.
Even so, I still hit a few dead ends as I wandered around the trucks.
Because they spend all day in a tiny booth overlooking the finish line, the technicians had seen me at multiple stages and invited me in for a tour! The booth is probably the size of a single college dorm room and typically has at least 6 technicians and judges monitoring things at the stage's finish.
The cameras aimed at the finish line shoot thousands of photos per second and combine to form almost a movie of the entire peloton. They typically have the intermediate sprint and stage results for the entire peloton within 5 minutes.
For lunch, several of the TV technicians invited me to join them at their picnic. Not long after, the promised rain clouds showed up, accompanied by some impressive thunder.
It proceeded to downpour for a solid couple of hours.
I didn't think the rain would last for that long, or at least not at that intensity, so I put on my rain coat and took some cover, but I was a drowned rat in no time. Taking pity on me and trying not to laugh at me, my new friends in the photo finish booth invited me back in. All those screens I mentioned? The race was broadcast on 2 of them, so I got to watch as one of my absolute favorite riders, Jack Bauer, took every risk imaginable trying to keep his 2 man break clear of the peloton. (Photo via twitter.)
The gap was well over 6 minutes for a long time and then the peloton quickly snatched back over 4 minutes with about 40 kilometers to go. But as the kilometers ticked by, the peloton stopped reeling in Bauer and Swiss champion Martin Elmiger.
Rain or not, I headed back outside to be well placed to see the finish. With 10 kilometers to go, the rain had let up, the sun was out, and the break was a minute clear. As a general rule of thumb, the peloton needs about 10 kilometers to pull back 1 minute, which is why it's not usually worth getting very excited when a break has 7 or 8 minutes advantage and 130 kilometers to go.
Over the next 5 kilometers, the peloton struggled to catch Bauer and Elmiger, despite a few attacks and attempts to control the chase by the sprinter teams. My heart pounded listening to the updates from Daniel Mangeas…4.8 kilometers to go and 30 seconds…4.2km and 27 seconds…3.9km and 28 seconds…3.5km and 24 seconds…
The peloton was panicking, wondering if they'd left the chase too late. I was panicking, too, as I desperately wanted Bauer to hang on for the stage win. For Bauer, a deserving rider, a Tour stage win would easy be his biggest cycling achievement to date and would be a huge boost for the Garmin squad, who lost their GC contender when Andrew Talansky abandoned after succumbing the injuries he suffered in a series of crashes.
It was going to be a close call if the break could hold on to the finish line. I guessed it would come down to the final 50 meters and–unfortunately–that's exactly what happened. Elmiger launched his sprint first but Bauer went clear. The peloton, not ready to concede defeat, overtook Bauer less than 50 meters before the line.
Alexander Kristoff of Katusha powered ahead to claim his second stage win of this year's Tour.
An exhausted Bauer held on for 10th place with teammate Ramunas Navardauskas finishing 7th.
For the second time this week, my heart broke for Garmin. To pour his heart and legs into such a monster ride and then to have the win snatched away when within spitting distance devastated Bauer. The same scenario had played out in Christchurch this past January when Hayden Roulston out sprinted Bauer in the closing meters to claim the New Zealand road race championship. (Photos via twitter.)
The grupetto finished a little more than 12 minutes down on Kristoff and rode straight on to their buses so the teams could start the rest day as soon as possible.
Kristoff celebrated his victory.
Nibali in yellow.
Sagan in green.
Bardet in white.
Rodriguez in polka dots.
I'm the first to admit I'm biased in this case, but having watched most of the stage live, I saw Bauer take far more risks and hold on longer than Elmiger, yet the Swiss champion was named the most combative rider by the journalists.
That empty press area I saw a few hours earlier? It was now inaccessible to the public as the TV crews lined up to interview the day's big winners.
Nibali.
Elmiger.
Disappointed as I was for Bauer and Garmin, seeing Greg Lemond and Bernard Hinault side by side for Eurosport reminded me just how unpredictable the sport can be.
Time for a rest day for all.