Friday - Stage 7

Stage 7 was the first day into the Pyrenees mountains with two massive climbs, a category 1 and an HC (above category). The mountain climbs are categorized from 1 to 4, with 4 being the easiest and 1 the hardest, and then there is the "Hors Categorie" (HC). I always think Hors d'oeuvres when I see HC, serve that junk up!

The finish line of Stage 7 was at the top of the HC ascent and this is where the action took place. The peloton had been splintered by the uphill pace and all the big names were present. All but Cancellara, the yellow jersey, who was dropped and ended up losing quite a bit of time on the stage overall. There was a small breakaway up head of the big guys but it didn't appear as if they were trying too hard to reel them back. And then Cadel Evans attacked! Cadel is the Australian riding for team Silence-Lotto who finished 2nd place in both the 2007 and 2008 Tour. He badly wants a Tour win, but didn't count on Lance coming back to bike racing. Cadel is already close to 3 minutes behind Lance which is a monumental time gap, so Cadel will have to do something special to get back into contention. This attack was his first attempt at doing so, but was quickly stymied by Lance and Team Astana. Cadel tried again, but to no avail. Lance, Contador and Leipheimer were just too strong and didn't look even close to breaking. And then the surprise of the day, Contador attacked and no one answered. He just flew away. The interesting part was that neither Lance nor Leipheimer made even the slightest attempt to hop on their teammates back wheel.

Why is this interesting?

If you haven't been following the Tour or Team Astana over the past couple of weeks, Team Astana has refused to announce who their team leader is. The part that's unknown is whether this is some kind of strategy or trickery by team director Johan Bruyneel or if there is some real tension within the team of who the leader should be. The leader of each team is the one guy that has the opportunity to win the Tour. No man can win the Tour on his own, it just requires too much work. That's the reason for teams. The teams consist of riders who specialize in the mountains, riders who specialize in time trials and riders who are good at everything. But the guy who will win the Tour has to be great at everything and has to have help from the rest of his team. They help him by protecting him from other riders, by protecting him from the wind, by getting him water bottles from the team car, to holding him steady as he relieves his bladder at 20 mph. Whatever the task, the team is there to help the leader win the Tour.

The problem with Team Astana is that they have too many great riders; Lance Armstrong - 7 time Tour champion, Alberto Contador - 2007 Tour champion, Levi Leipheimer - 3rd place 2007 Tour, Andreas Kloden - 2nd place 2004 and 2006 Tour. The other problem is that Contador was the assumed team leader until Lance announced his return to cycling. Contador was also the presumed leader of Astana for the 2008 Tour in which team Astana was suspended due to doping issues. Because of this, Contador wasn't allowed to enter the 2008 Tour. Contador's career involves the 2007 Tour victory, being denied the opportunity to race the 2008 tour, and the probability that he will be riding for Lance here in the 2009 Tour. Yea, that could cause some animosity.

Astana team director, Johan Bruyneel, is known for his racing prowess and leadership. On more than one occasion he has tricked the other teams with one ruse or another. Is Astana's unannounced leadership a strategy to keep the other teams off guard or do they have an internal power struggle? The ultimate goal is for the team to win the Tour. If the other teams don't know who they are riding against does this give some advantage to Astana? Does Astana really need that advantage? Did Lance come back to the Tour to lose? There are a lot of ways to look at it but it comes down to this, Contador attacked and Lance didn't answer even though he looked completely fit to do so. My personal feeling is that there's some trickery going on in team Astana but only they know for sure.

The net result was that Contador finished 21" seconds ahead of Lance which launched him into second place overall. It would have been first place had it not been for one of the riders in the breakaway who gained enough time to take over first place and the yellow.

The new leader board reads like this...

1 - NOCENTINI Rinaldo - TEAM AG2R
2 - Alberto Contador - TEAM ASTANA - 06" seconds behind
3 - Lance Armstrong - TEAM ASTANA - 08"
4 - Levi Leipheimer - TEAM ASTANA - 39"
5 - Bradley Wiggins - TEAM GARMIN - 46"
6 - Andreas Kloden - TEAM ASTANA - 54"
18 - Cadel Evans - TEAM SILENCE-LOTTO - 3' 07"
36 - Big George Hincapie - TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC - 5' 25"
39 - Fabian Cancellara - TEAM SAXO BANK - 5' 37"