2009 Tour de France - Stage 12 News and Notes | Bigalke Presents...

96th Tour de France

Stage 12 - Tonnerre to Vittel - 211.5 km (131.0 mi)

16 July 2009

For the first time in days, there was no breakneck full-bore sprint royale to the finish line in a stage at the Tour de France. Looking at this stage before the 2009 Tour started, it appeared the final forty kilometers would afford the perfect opportunity for any early breakaway to get reeled in and each of the sprinters' trains could line up to launch their leader to the final couple hundred meters. The smart money was on Cavendish getting the hat-trick before the mountain stage through the Vosges on Friday -- the one that until recently was to be raced without team radio communication until the UCI stepped in today to announce a reversal of the policy. But on this stage, where radios were in use without question, the light little pieces of technological wizardry could not prevent unpredictability from reigning supreme once again in a crazy, crazy race.

The race played out more like a one-day classic than a regular Tour stage. Long, at over two-hundred kilometers, and with a consistently undulating road reminiscent of the spring campaigns just north into the Ardennes, the route from Tonnerre to Vittel saw a selection of seven sprint away from the peloton seventy kilometers into the stage. Surging to a gap of around four minutes, the breakaway went clear together and managed to hold the hounds at bay. Then, after over a hundred kilometers of cooperation, the games inevitably played out as they do in a race selection. In the end, it was Nicki Sorensen who was tactically perfect, separating from everyone else to ride alone onto the Avenue Georges Clemenceau in the mountain spa retreat of Vittel.

Sorensen, the veteran 34-year-old domestique for the Saxo Bank team, has been riding for his compatriot and team director Bjarne Riis for almost his entire decade-long career. He has been a faithful lieutentant for a steady line of leaders -- Bo Hamburger, Laurent Jalabert, Tyler Hamilton, Bobby Julich, Ivan Basso, Carlos Sastre, and now the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank. Before this point, his crowning personal achievements had been a breakaway victory into Avila on Stage 18 of the 2005 Vuelta a Espana, and two Danish national road championships in 2003 and 2008. But today, getting into the right move and exhibiting his innate ability after so many years on such a dominant team to read correctly the move. Radio or not, Sorensen would've likely been right there, to protect the fortunes of his newest charges by keeping and protecting the team from having to work in a peloton focused on the goal reeling them back. Fortune and the camaraderie of the break allowed them to stay clear; Sorensen ably did the rest, with nearly a minute to spare after a monumental solo effort.

No one saw this coming. As the 170-strong pack rolled out of Tonnerre with six categorized ripples on the road to Vittel, sun shining on the phalanx of riders, the pace was kept so high that the first three mountains passed in a blur. Nineteen kilometers in, the group rode over the fourth-category Cote de Baon with David Millar (Garmin-Slipstream) ahead of the Liquigas duo of Daniele Bennati and Franco Pelizzotti. Rolling back down slightly in elevation into Channes, the sprinters tested their form in the first intermediate sprint -- Mark Cavendish pipping Thor Hushovd and Sandy Casar at the line. Two more fourth-category climbs came in rapid succession along the consistently-rolling terrain, with Pellizotti beating current polka-dotted King of the Mountains leader Egoi Martinez to the summit of the Cote de Gye-sur-Seine. Then, descending and coming right back up, Laurent Lefevre (BBox-Bouygues Telecom) launched ahead over the top of the Cote d'Essoyes with Sylvain Calzati (Agritubel) and Pelizzotti in tow.

And then the formation of a breakaway finally came to effective fruition. With the pace so high through the first hour and a half, the riders had no chance to get away. But with the last climb, seven astute riders formed a break which managed to pull free of the peloton. The seven riders -- Lefevre, Calzati, Pellizotti, Sorensen, Egoi Martinez, Remi Pauriol (Cofidis) and Markus Fothen (Milram) -- worked together in a paceline to build their advantage to four-plus minutes by the midway point of the stage, just past the second intermediate sprint in Longchamp-sur-Aujon won by Calzati over Pellizotti and Martinez.

Pellizotti, challenging Martinez and his polka-dot jersey, took all three of the remaining categorized climbs en route, Martinez and Sorensen right behind on his wheel each time. And then, with around twenty kilometers left in the stage, Sorensen made his move that would decide his fate and allow him finally to earn his deserved award as a dedicated veteran as a stage winner at the Tour de France. With all the climbs behind and the road relatively flat the rest of the way to Vittel, the Dane accelerated away around 23 kilometers from the finish. Calzati jumped to gain his wheel, and the two pulled free of the remaining five as the peloton ramped up its pressure in hopes of capture.

But the main field was always giving it a half-hearted effort, with no team taking any true initiative to reel in the seven ahead on the road. Astana suffered some dents to its armor. While most of the attention was given to Lance Armstrong's flat tire, the team is good enough that he was soon on a replacement and back in the group without too much worry. What should worry Johan Bruyneel much more tonight is the health of Armstrong's fellow American podium hope, Levi Leipheimer, who took a wicked tumble around two kilometers from the finish. His wrist was not merited bad enough to warrant an x-ray, but it is still possible as the mountains loom that Leipheimer will not be there to either support his two leaders or to launch his own wild-card bid. So, even though Leipheimer did not lose time on the field -- in a rule initiated to promote safety in the pack, the Tour de France has a rule which states that a rider cannot lose any time on the field in which he was riding should he crash three kilometers or less from the finish line -- he still might've lost his top-five status and a possible podium position with this unfortunate accident.

Sorensen suffered no fate. With no one around, he split free of Calzati with five kilometers remaining to finish 48 seconds ahead into Vittel. Reminiscent of a solo finish into Meerbeke at the Tour of Flanders, the Danish domestique earned his moment in the sun. After all the years of riding for others, today was his chance to do something for himself. In doing so, he put his Saxo Bank squad back on the podium after early maillot jaune Fabian Cancellara was bounced last week, and wrote his name into a part of the rich and ever-growing history of the Tour de France...

RESULTS - STAGE 12