2009 Tour de France - Stage 14 News and Notes | Bigalke Presents...

96th Tour de France

Stage 14 - Colmar to Besancon - 199.0 km (123.5 mi)

18 July 2009

It's been a weird past twenty-four hours at the Tour de France. We learned that two riders, sprinters Julian Dean of Garmin-Slipstream and Oscar Freire of Rabobank, were shot with what was purported to be an air rifle during the descent of the Col du Platzerwasel. Today, a fan ran in front of a police motorcycle, killing herself in the process and causing the Republican Guardsman to spill off his ride. Levi Leipheimer, after fracturing his scaphoid bone in his wrist, is now out of the race, headed back to the United States just when his Astana team could be using him most. Tomorrow will be yielding yet more exciting action, as we enter the Alps proper with a summit finish in Verbier, Switzerland.

But today was a ride for yet another breakaway to get free and earn one of its riders the distinction of becoming a winner at the 2009 Tour de France. Today was the turn of Katusha's Serguei Ivanov, who eight years after his last Tour stage triumph -- the Stage 9 run-in to Aix-les-Bains in the 2001 race -- once again held a sixteen-second gap at the line to earn his second career stage win. Ivanov, who this year won his first one-day classic of a well-fought career when he took the Amstel Gold Race at the beginning of Ardennes Week, is the type of rider who seems to be getting better with age. 34 years old, he is riding like the legitimate and worthy successor to guys like Viatcheslav Ekimov. His escapades will bring glory back to his homeland, to his team and its sponsor, and to himself.

It all started where yesterday finished, in the Alsatian town of Colmar. The riders headed southeast out of town on a rainy-day journey toward Besancon and the foothills of the Alps. Before the riders could even make it to the first intermediate sprint point in Pulversheim, a break group of fourteen extracted itself from the peloton and advanced ahead up the road. The riders -- Hayden Roulston (Cervelo TestTeam), Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank), Martijn Maaskant (Garmin-Slipstream), George Hincapie and Mark Cavendish(Columbia), Nicolas Roche (AG2R-La Mondiale), Daniele Bennati and Frederik Willems (Liquigas), Christophe Le Mevel (Francaise des Jeux), Sebastien Minard (Cofidis), Daniele Righi (Lampre), Serguei Ivanov (Katusha), Gerald Ciolek (Milram) and Albert Timmer (Skil-Shimano) -- pulled away just over ten kilometers into the stage.

The presence of Cavendish, who jumped in trying to clean up the intermediate sprints and gain back the maillot vert taken back yesterday by Cervelo's Thor Hushovd, was doomed from the beginning. He lasted just four kilometers before dropping back and allowing the other thirteen to gain ground. The sprint in Pulversheim was won by Ciolek over Bennati and Righi, though the leaders continued struggling to open up any appreciable gap on the field. Hanging under a minute for the first hour of racing, it felt as though this might come back all together.

But by the time the second intermediate sprint was advancing, the gap had pushed over the minute mark. In Dannemarie, Hayden Roulston pipped the French pair of Le Mevel and Minard to win the six points. The breakaway was down to a dozen as Jens Voigt, the veteran German rider who has long been a fixture of Tour breakaways for Riis-managed squads, suffered a tire puncture and was not able to get atop a replacement in time to catch up. With the gap having ballooned to over five minutes by the food zone in Delle, it was looking more and more given the conservative manner in which the peloton has approached rolling stages in this year's race that the day's winner would come from this selection of twelve.

Soon after grabbing lunch to go, the leaders were greeted in quick succession by the day's only two climbs, both rated third-category: the Cote de Lebetain at 90.5 km and the Cote de Blamont at 111.5 km. Willems beat Timmer to the line over the Lebetain, while it was Minard grabbing the four points at the top of the Blamont ahead of Ciolek. With the biggest bumps in the road behind, the breakaway descended back toward lower elevations for the final eighty or so kilometers into Besancon.

The gap, now at six and a half minutes, meant that longtime American Tour veteran and one-day classics contender George Hincapie was the virtual maillot jaune on the road. Only 5:25 down on race leader Rinaldo Nocentini before the stage, Hincapie was looking at possibly climbing into yellow for the second time in his career after donning the jersey after Stage 1 of the 2006 Tour. But the lead group would have to stay away and maintain its margin for that to occur. In the town of Dambelin, 73 kilometers from the finish, the gap had actually grown to over eight minutes. Things were looking better and better for the dozen riders up the road.

But even if their maillot jaune isn't a true contender for this year's race, the AG2R-La Mondiale team still drove hard to decrease the deficit enough to keep their Italian leader Rinaldo Nocentini in yellow another evening. With forty kilometers remaining, the gap was down to seven and a half minutes. By the time the final intermediate sprint passed in Baume-Les-Dames with Roulston once again taking the victory, just a few miles further down the road, the gap was below seven minutes. While the peloton would surely not catch this group, it could whittle enough time back to prevent any serious shake-up of the general classification.

With twenty kilometers left, Hincapie still had a minute advantage toward the yellow jersey, though the gap just kept falling at a steady pace. Just over ten kilometers from the line, the cat-and-mouse games began. First Martijn Maaskant attacked, quickly reined back in by Le Mevel and the rest. Immediately after the catch, Nicolas Roche took his chance up an incline to make his break, but once again the other riders hung close on his wheel. Then Serguei Ivanov countered, opening up a divide wide enough to put the rest of the leaders in disarray.

Riding like a time-trialist with the finish line indelibly guiding his every pedal stroke, Ivanov fended off the advances of his former breakaway companions to solo into Besancon. The Russian national champion, bedecked in his tricolor red, white and blue jersey, stayed sixteen seconds clear -- the exact margin of victory of his first Tour stage victory eight years earlier. Roche and Roulston led in the eleven riders in the lead chase group just a quarter-minute later, and then the nerve-wracking wait began. Ultimately, the peloton would come in with just five seconds to spare, and Hincapie placed a new American in second place on the GC. With Leipheimer now out of the race, Hincapie's move once again puts three American riders -- and from three different teams, no less -- into the top ten of the Tour de France overall. The golden age of American cycling is now, and it just keeps getting better... Armstrong or no Armstrong...

RESULTS - STAGE 14