A cruel race

If you’re a Tour de France fan and you haven’t seen the results for stage 16 yet, feel free to skip this post. You can come back after you’ve watched the highlights of a truly amazing mountain stage.

I haven’t stayed up to watch every stage this year but the days in the mountain are very addictive.

Australia’s Cadel Evans lost some ground two stages back and ended up in 7th position but last night I sat alone in our family room watching him stay with the big names of the tour.

Then around 15 kilometres from the end of the stage, Floyd Landis, the American who many were saying would win this year’s event, just started dropping from the main contenders. He lost several minutes and dropped to from 1st to 11th position overall. It was painful to watch the yellow jersey riding as hard as he could but losing time to everyone around him. More and more lower placed riders just rode straight past him on their way to the top of the climb. It can be a cruel race.

Mickael Rasmussen was amazing. He stayed away from the rest of the peleton for pretty much the whole day to take the stage.

The official Tour de France website summed up the stage. Floyd Landis appeared to be in control of the general classification until the final 15km of what many believed was the toughest stage of the 2006 Tour de France. Mickael Rasmussen won the battle – claiming the stage win and the polka-dot jersey – but it was Oscar Pereiro who is back in yellow after Landis completely cracked and dropped from first to 11th.

Cadel Evans, on the other hand, moved back up to 5th overall. The final mountain stage will be live on telly tonight. I know I’m going to be tired again tomorrow but I don’t want to miss whatever happens next.

I know that it must be tough cycling up the side of a mountain because I’m feeling exhausted just watching them.

We’re down to the final few days of what has been a fascinating tour. After tonight’s mountain stage there’s a reasonably flat stage then an individual time trial before the ride into Paris. I wonder who’ll be wearing yellow on Sunday.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Technorati Tags: Tour de France – Cadel Evans – Cycling

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