Tour de France: Stage 7

The mountains!  We’re finally into the mountains!  The Tour climbed out of Barcelona today to pay a visit to its second principality: Andorra.

As expected, Astana paced the peloton for most of the day, but unexpectedly, they allowed a breakaway to put more than 12 minutes between them at the start of the stage.  The lead group of the peloton narrowed the gap, but allowed them to finish just far enough ahead to put relative unknown Rinaldo Nocentini in yellow.

Judging from the way his Wikipedia page looked prior to yesterday (the last edit was on April 23), no one had much to say about Nocentini.  Now he’ll have his 15 minutes of fame before handing over the maillot jaune to one of the overall contenders tomorrow.

Behind Nocentini and the rest of the breakaway, the big names of the Tour were battling for position.  Early in the big climb to the finish, previous leader Fabian Cancellara was unceremoniously dropped off the back of the peloton.  Several other contenders tried to break off the front of the pack, but none succeeded until Alberto Contador absolutely spanked the rest of the field and crossed the finish line 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the leaders. 

None of the big names lost too much ground, and it’s still anyone’s race, but Contador definitely made people take notice.  He’s only 6 seconds behind Nocentini, but also only 2 seconds ahead of Lance Armstrong.  The battle for the lead of Team Astana is far from over.

Rider of the Day

All due respect to Nocentini and shocking stage winner Brice Feillu, but this was Contador’s day.  He made his mark on this year’s Tour and showed that he won’t be content to stalk Armstrong until the old man falters.  He’s going to go out there and show that he’s a stronger climber than anyone else in the race.

Reasons I Love the Tour #7 - Surprise Yellow Jersey Holders

Every once in a while, someone comes out of nowhere to take the lead of the Tour de France.  Normally it happens before the mountains, if a breakaway gets far enough ahead to put one of its members into the overall lead, but this year it happened on the first mountain stage.  Nocentini has no illusions of winning the Tour de France, but for the rest of his career and the rest of his life, he’ll be known as a former yellow jersey holder.  Even if he accomplishes nothing else in his career, no one can take that yellow jersey from him (well, except for tomorrow, when Alberto Contador does).