Tour de France: Stage 12

Blah, blah, flat stage.  The breakaway actually succeeded today, denying Mark Cavendish a shot at winning another stage.  Nicki Sorensen executed a breakaway from the breakaway perfectly to take the stage win.

Tomorrow might see some moves by the overall contenders, but we’re not likely to see any real attacks until Sunday.  While we’re waiting, here’s a breakdown of the yellow jersey race:

Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador are exactly where they want to be.  They don’t want Astana to have to do the work expected from the yellow jersey team until after the Alps.  They’re very close to the leader, and no one expects the current yellow jersey holder to handle the Alps.

So with Armstrong and Contador having a stranglehold on the race, who else has a shot?

Cadel Evans and Andy Schleck aren’t in terrible shape, but they’re going to have to find a way to take a couple minutes away from Armstrong and Contador.  Neither has shown his cards yet, but I have a hard time believing they’ll be able to beat Armstrong and Contador in the mountains.

Last year’s winner Carlos Sastre is still in the picture, but is a long shot to repeat.  Denis Menchov is 5 minutes out and has yet to be heard from all race.

So it essentially looks like a 2 man race heading into the Alps on Sunday, unless something unexpected happens tomorrow or Saturday.

One other thing - why isn’t Alberto Contador wearing the Spanish national champions jersey any more?  Andy Schleck, Cancellara, Boonen, and Roche are all still wearing their national champion jerseys.  Is it because the Spanish jersey looked it was on fire?

Rider of the Day

Egoi Martinez covered a breakaway that included Franco Pelizotti, the other contender for the polka dot jersey.  He showed great awareness of his competitors and managed to protect his lead.

Reasons I Love the Tour - The Polka Dot Jersey

With Egoi Martinez in the breakaway today, we got to see a lot of the polka dot jersey, awarded to the rider who wins the mountain classification. 

There aren’t too many other places in sports where polka dots get prime billing.  In fact, I can’t think of any other sports uniform with dots on it. 

In addition to looking awesome (if weird), the race to be king of the mountains is always a great one.  These guys concentrate on one thing only: climbing.  They’re the ones who never seem to tire in the mountains and constantly attack to try and break the peloton.