le Tour de France, 2008
- the race renewed

index
who’s left from previous years’ doping scandals?
the results of the 2008 tour de france
green is the new green
the map
this year’s stages
the teams

last year (2007): the first thirty riders
22 July 2008, after the sixteenth stage -from Cuneo, Italy to Jausiers, France
17 July 2008, after the twelfth stage - Lavelanet to Narbonne
this year’s longest stage - british winner!

who’s left from previous years’ doping scandals?

After the doping upheavals of 2006 and 2007, many previous top names are nowhere to be seen - Ullrich, Basso, Landis, Kashechkin, Mancebo, Heras, Contador, Kloden, Leipheimer, Vinokourov, Moreni. With three weeks to go, who is left to be the possible front-runners for the 2008 Yellow Jersey?

Probable riders from last year’s top ten are:

Cadel Evans, from Australia, Silence-Lotto, no. 2 last year,
Carlos Sastre, from Spain, Team CSC, last year’s no.4,
Haimar Zubeldia, from Spain, Euskaltel-Euskadi, no.5 last year,
Alejandro Valverde, from Spain, Caisse d’Epargne, last year’s no.6,
Kim Kirchen, from Luxembourg, Team Columbia, last year’s no.7,
Yaroslav Popovych, from Ukraine, Silence-Lotto, no.8 last year,
Mikel Astrarloza, from Spain, Euskaltel-Euskadi, last year’s no.9,
Oscar Pereiro, from Spain, Caisse d’Epargne, no.10 last year,

so they could be in with a good chance to win this year’s 3,500 kilometre race and become the real successor to Lance Armstrong. Of the seven, Cadel Evans showed himself with a margin over the others taking part this year. Popvych, Astrarloza and Pereiro are riding second-string in their teams, making the top five in the list the most likely to appear on the leader board when the Tour ends in Paris on 27 July.

The finalised list of riders, by team, is now available. It includes:

001 EVANS Cadel
006 MC EWEN Robbie
007 POPOVYCH Yaroslav
011 SASTRE Carlos
015 O’GRADY Stuart
019 VOIGT Jens
021 ZUBELDIA Haimar
022 ASTARLOZA Mikel
031 VALVERDE Alejandro
037 PEREIRO SIO Oscar
041 KIRCHEN Kim
043 CAVENDISH Mark
047 HINCAPIE George
055 COOKE Baden
081 HUSHOVD Thor
151 ZABEL Erik
161 CASAR Sandy
198 MILLAR David

The 16th stage in the 2007 Tour de France

the results of the 2008 tour de france

2008: the first thirty riders [for 2009 results]

green is the new green

This year, the Green Jersey - le Maillot Vert, will have something special. The wearer will still have as much energy and tactical sense to get hold of it, but its colour will have changed.

So that this jersey will be more visible in the peleton, the Green Jersey will be lighter, in a shade exactly identical to that which it had at the moment of its creation in 1953. The colour had been modified at the beginning of the 1990s

Those ancient spectators that vibrated to the blows given to pedals by Sean Kelly, Freddy Maertens, or André Darrigade, will find again a familiar shade of green. The new heroes racing to the finish line, Tom Boonen, Robbie McEwen or Thor Hushovd, will not be slow to get a taste for this new old colour.

The 2008 Tour de France

This year’s Tour de France race starts from Brittany on 5th July, drops into Italy for a couple of days’ cycling, and finishes on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, after 21 days racing.

Note that stage 15 now starts from Embrun, not Dignes-les-Bains.
There was too great a risk of rock falls in the climb up the Col de Larche on the original route.

Here is advice on watching the circus by the roadside, with further advice for mountain stage spectating.

this year’s stages

There are 21 stages, of which five are high mountain stages [Alps 3, Pyrenees 2], four are medium mountain stages and two are individual against-the-clock [contre-le-montre] time trials. There are 2 rest days. All other days are ‘on the plain’ - relatively flat days, almost touring through France. The total distance ridden will be about 3,500 kilometres, or roughly 1,900 miles.

the teams

last year (2007): the first thirty riders

22 July 2008, after the sixteenth stage -from Cuneo, Italy to Jausiers, France

After a tourist trip in Italy, we are now back in France and headed towards Paris.

Saving catastrophes and Herculean performances, Cadel Evans still has the Tour well under control. There are only five left in any sort of conntention: in order, Frank Schleck, Berhard Kohl - seven seconds back, Cadel Evans - eight seconds behind Schleck, Carlos Sastre - forty-nine seconds in arrears, and Denis Menchov at 1 minute 13 seconds.

None of these four can have much hope against Cadel Evans on the time trial [contre le montre], scheduled for the penultimate stage [26 July, 53 km]. It is very likely that Evans will then take at least a minute or two out of all these riders.

Kim Kirchen, at seventh, is only 3 minutes 23 back, but one of the very few who could use the time trial to pull back time from Evans.

In historical terms, this Tour is very close with only just over five minutes separating the first ten riders.

However, all is not over yet. Tomorrow, 23 July, the seventeenth stage - 210 km from Embrun to L’Alpe-d’Huez, is an unusually horrific challenge, even for the Tour de France, complete with with three HC climbs [HC: hors classification; unclassified, because they are simply ridiculous]. Evans did give a hint of weakness on stage fifteen; thus, tomorrow must remain the last chance for the top riders to challenge, or even crack, him - a task that will require optimism as well as bionic strength. After all, today’s sixteenth stage was hard enough and Evans just treated it as a walk in the park.

[skoda ad - to follow]

For much more detail see the Tour de France website.

17 July 2008, after the twelfth stage - Lavelanet to Narbonne

The remarkable dominance of English-speaking cyclists on the world stage is becoming impressive. After seven years of complete dominance by the American Lance Armstrong; Mark Cavendish (COL) has now won his third stage in the 2008 Tour de France - the first time this has been done by a British rider. His dominance in finishing melee sprints is currently looking overwhelming.

Meanwhile, Cadel Evans of Australia (SIL), although having an overall lead of just one second, looks set to dominate the podium in Paris. Despite a nasty crash, leaving him the worse for wear, he is maintaining his lead and putting real margins between himself and rivals. Evans has impressively tremendous strength in both climbing stages and contre le montre.

The rider immediately behind Evans, Frank Schleck - the CSC rider from Luxembourg, dropped over a minute to Evans in the fourth stage, 29.5km, Cholet time trial. With the twentieth stage, 53 km time trial [26 July] between Cérilly and Saint-Amand-Montrond still to come, saving more hiccups, the Australian looks home and dry to me.

And this all after British cyclists took nine gold medals at the world track cycling championships last March.

this year’s longest stage - british winner!

Twenty-two year old Mark Cavendish from the Isle of Man, riding for High Road/Columbia, cycled to victory after 232 kilometres - the longest stage in this year’s Tour de France.

Giant yellow ant at Rond-point de l’Europe, Descartes, finished just in time for the Tour.
The peleton races round the roundabout with its ant sculpture by Michel Audiard

After five warm-up stages, the top ten places are held by

Schumacher leads the overall classification by virtue of a surprise win in the 29.5 km contre le montre (against the clock). Britain’s David Miller came second. However, these two riders are not rated as top climbers, and you cannot win the Tour without being a great climber.

Thus, as you can see from the table above, Cadel Evans and Christian Vandevelde (both of whom can climb) are already moving into threatening positions. This as the Tour speeds towards three days of ‘practice’ climbing around the Central Massif. And then the real Tour starts in the Pyrenees.

Note that the sixteen seconds advantage is no minor problem. If Vandevelde hopes to finish in the Yellow Jersey, he will have to seriously crack Evans in the hills, especially with another time trial looming on the penultimate day [26 July].

As the efforts to get drugs out of the Tour continue, Quickstep lost their star sprinter, Tom Boonen (2007 Green Jersey), over a positive test for cocaine. Surprisingly, strictly, this was not a cycle doping incident, but out he had to go. Meanwhile, Schumacher also has a similar shadow over a police stop regarding amphetamines, after a drink-driving arrest. The Tour organisers are trying to argue that Boonen and Schumacher incidents are somehow ‘different’, but no-one sentient seems to be able to explain why.

After fighting for two years, Floyd Landis finally lost his last doping appeal, and Oscar Pereiro has been declared the official winner of the 2006 Tour de France.

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