2009 Tour de France - Stage 6 News and Notes | Real-Time Rants

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| 03:02 AM ET 07.09 |

96th Tour de France

Stage 6 - Girona to Barcelona - 181.5 km (112.5 mi)

09 July 2009

The race for the yellow jersey once again held steady today, with Fabian Cancellara maintaining his paper-thin lead over Lance Armstrong by a fraction of a second. But while there are no riders who blew up the race for general classification, there was one competition which became particularly interesting on a wet day in Spain. With the riders starting and finishing away from French soil, this stage was the perfect venue for an uphill sprint finish featuring two former winners of the maillot vert and rival Mark Cavendish nowhere in sight.

Ultimately it was Norwegian rider Thor Hushovd of Cervelo besting Rabobank's Oscar Freire in his home country. In the process, Hushovd -- the 2005 winner of the points classification -- jumped to within a single point of Cavendish, who was conspicuous in his absence as he could not hold the leaders' wheels up the climb. So it appears that the Manxman is mortal after all, and while he retains the jersey another night, Hushovd is a rider that can sneak away to get in a forward break in the mountains. It will be fun to watch two competitions now knotted so close as we head into the Pyrenees tomorrow.

The riders set out from Girona on a day cooler than the previous two, with cloud cover and breezes around ten miles an hour dropping the temperature into the mid-seventies Fahrenheit. One rider, Robert Gesink of Rabobank, was unable to start today's stage after his crash yesterday resulted in a broken wrist. So it was 177 riders that set out from Girona, the favored home base of a majority of North American riders in the professional European peloton.

The group stayed together as one as kilometer after kilometer ticked away behind in the distance. Still together as the fourth-category Cote de Sant Feliu de Guixols arrived thirty kilometers into the stage, the pack charged up its slopes with Alexandre Botcharov of Katusha beating David Zabriskie at the line. It would be nearly another twenty kilometers up the road, right before the start of the day's second climb over the fourth-category Cote de Tossa de Mar, that we saw our first attacks of the day. Stephane Auge (Cofidis), Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) and David Millar (Garmin-Slipstream) built up a lead of around a minute on the main field just before the climb. Auge took the KOM points ahead of Chavanel over the top, with Millar in third to the summit.

On the descent, the town of Lloret de Mar hosted the first intermediate sprint of the day's racing. Still clear of the peloton, Chavanel came through ahead of Auge and Millar, with the gap back to the main field ballooned to three minutes. At this point in the stage Millar was the virtual maillot jaune on the road, having been in the top ten prior to today's stage start. Though the three leaders were working well together, the field behind were ramping up their pressure. The sprinters, sensing their last opportunity for a while before the high mountains on Friday and still smarting over yesterday's lost chances, began to turn the screws at the front to bring the gap back.

Millar passed through the second intermediate sprint in Sant Pol de Mar ahead of Chavanel and Auge, with the pack now only two minutes and change in arrears. The rain began to fade away, though gray skies remained in its wake. The feeding zone in Can Villa appeared just a few kilometers after the second sprint point, and then the roads turned upward again for the third-category Cote de Sant Vicenc de Montalt. Stephane Auge took the four points at the top, followed by Chavanel, Millar and then Amets Txurruka, the Euskaltel-Euskadi rider who pulled free from the Astana-led peloton and was tyring to bridge through to the leaders.

Txurruka eventually turned the lead group into a quartet near the summit of the day's fourth climb, the third-category Collsacreu. Auge took the points at the top yet again to consolidate his move into the polka-dot jersey at the end of the stage, taking the King of the Mountains lead over from Francaise des Jeux's Finnish rider Jussi Veikkanen. The final sprint point in Cardedeu came fifty kilometers from the end of the stage, with but one climb remaining on the route. Chavanel took the line ahead of Txurruka and Millar, and the quartet raced ahead with dreams of replicating the breakaway that saw Thomas Voeckler win yesterday.

But the peloton had other ideas, obviously. The gap closed under two minutes with fifty kilometers left to go to Barcelona. The lead continued to fade away, down to fifty seconds by the summit of the day's final climb over the fourth-category Cote de la Conreria. David Millar attacked out of the lead group from there, making an effort to solo in a la Voeckler to the stage win. Txurruka followed, trying to bridge to Millar and make it a two-up sprint to the line. Riding almost like current yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara did when he took his Paris-Roubaix victory in 2006, Millar drew upon his considerable time-trial skills to dig deep and grit his teeth toward the finish.

The gap pulled out to a minute with fifteen kilometers to go, and it appeared for a while that Millar might've made the tactically-sound move. All of the sprinters' teams started moving forward in the pack to take a pull, desperate not to give up a second straight chance for their speedsters. The gap fell to 47 seconds with 7 kilometers remaining; with 2.5 kilometers left, it had fallen to just 20 seconds. The game of cat and mouse was in full effect.

But while Millar gamely pulled at the front alone, the collective strength of the peloton was simply too much to stave off for a full thirty kilometers. Caught just before the final kilometer, Millar certainly deserved applause for his effort even if it did amount to nothing in the end. With everything back together, the sprinters started to set up for the final climb up the hill in Montjuich Park. Just like one of the Ardennes classics where these sprinters often dominate, the ride favored the fast men with some climbing punch over short distance. Cavendish was nowhere to be found, which opened the door for Thor Hushovd to take the stage victory.

The excitement builds, as the win put Hushovd just a single point behind Cavendish in the hunt for the green jersey. With Lance Armstrong still just 0.22 seconds behind Fabian Cancellara, we have two tense contests to observe going into the weekend as the roads head toward the heavens. The Pyrenees await, and the peloton must get ready for the first summit finish of the 2009 Tour de France. There's little time to rest on one's laurels in this race of attrition... but tonight, Hushovd can take a moment to celebrate his good fortune and better assess his chances at a second maillot vert...

RESULTS - STAGE 6