Wed - Stage 5

Wednesday's stage 5 had a lot of similarities to Monday's stage 3; strong winds, a good breakaway, and the opportunity to escape from the peloton during a wind shift. The 120 mile stage started with an early breakaway of 6 riders, Thomas Voeckler included. Voeckler, pronounced Vo-claire and you say it with a heavy French accent because this clown is French, won quite a few stages and wore the Yellow Jersey back in 2004. As a matter of fact the breakaway which put him in yellow occurred in Stage 5 of that Tour. Could he do it again in Stage 5 this year?

Things got pretty exciting with about 40 miles to go, when the peloton was riding with a stiff tail wind and a looming right hand turn. The right hand 90 degree turn would switch the strong tail wind to a difficult cross wind and the whole peloton knows what can happen on a wind shift after Stage 3. Knowing this, everyone was jockeying for lead position of the peloton. That combined with the strong tail wind and these guys were absolutely flying down the road. Once again Lance and company were near the front into the turn and sure enough the peloton was split into 3 sections. However, with some 40 miles to the finish, the amount of effort required to maintain the split just wasn't worth it, so the pace returned to normal and the three sections merged back into one peloton. These guys will be racing for the next 18 days so every ounce of output is carefully scrutinized against return. Is it worth it to output maximum effort for an hour and 20 minutes to gain 20 seconds on the guys behind you? Probably not, save it for the mountains and gain minutes instead of seconds.

Now back to Voeckler and the breakaway. The 6 riders were approaching the finish and the race computers were predicting that the breakaway would succeed. At the same time, the peloton led by Mark Cavendish's team Columbia HTC were gaining quickly. Cavendish was looking for another sprint stage win and didn't want any breakaways to ruin it for him. Panic ensued amongst the 6 and they felt that Voeckler wasn't pulling his load (not taking his turn on the front breaking the wind). They bickered a while and Voeckler simply appeared exhausted and not able to lead. One guy finally had enough of the bickering and attacked (sprinted away from the other 6). Voeckler instantly launched a counter attack and quickly caught the man. The 6 regrouped, but with Voeckler's ruse discovered, he decided it was time to launch his own attack. He was off and no one was gonna catch him. Due to his refusal to lead during the past couple of kilometers, his legs were a bit stronger than the others and that's what allowed him to breakaway. His strategy worked and it looked like he would win the stage but hot on his tail was the peloton closing fast. Once again, Columbia led a picture perfect lead out for Cavendish and he was gunning for Voeckler. Unfortunately for Cavendish, the peloton mis-timed the finish and Voeckler won the stage by 5 seconds. Cavendish placed 2nd missing the opportunity to add another stage win to his resume.
Way to go Voeckler, you own stage 5 of the Tour de France!