Tour de France 2011

Graham Watson Stage 2 photo gallery

GrahamWatson.com | Tour de France Stage 2 Photo Gallery

Girona roommates Landis & Zabriskie, Voeckler leading the break
and the Tour's first sunflowers from grahamwatson.com

Here's Watson's Stage 2 Report from ThePaceline.com (free registration required).

CyclingNews monster Stage 2 photo gallery

www.cyclingnews.com | Stage 2 Photo Gallery

Vino your Kazakh champ, Boonen takes the stage, and
Voeckler finds a jersey from cyclingnews.com

CyclingNews.com has a huge photo gallery today, with more than 90 photos in all. If you've got a favorite rider, he's likely in there. Also, the first devil-sighting (what?) of the year.

Silver Train to roll no more?

procyling.com | Fassa team facing end of the line?

ProCycling.com quotes L'Equipe (I can't find the original story online) that Fassa Bortolo is in danger of financial collapse.

Team manager Giancarlo Ferretti is seeking a new sponsor to take over for the team's title sponsor, an Italian concrete company. He thought he had a deal lined up in the offseason with French bank Caisse d'Espargne, but they became secondary sponsors for Illes Balears a few weeks later. Panasonic, Philips, and Orange have all reportedly refused to step into the breach.

“We have given ourselves one more week before we make a decision. After that, the riders are free to go where they want,” Ferretti said yesterday.

Some rumors about who may go where: Juan Antonio Flecha to Rabobank and Kim Kirchen to Liquigas. The big prize, of course, would be Alessandro Petacchi, who is rumored to have had discussions with Discovery, T-Mobile, Phonak, and Domina Vacanze.

Update: Eurosport reports that Discovery may also be after Fabian Cancellara.

Armstrong's father interviewed by Dutch newspaper

procycling | Lance's father gives first interview

Six-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong was born Lance Edward Gunderson, but legally changed his name when adopted by his mother's second husband.

What we've heard about Armstrong's biological father has largely been from Linda Armstrong Kelly, Armstrong's mother, and from Armstrong himself. Armstrong has repeatedly said he wants nothing to do with Gunderson, and has referred to him as “the DNA donor.”

Gunderson gave an interview to Algemeen Dagblad, where he both confirms and contradicts elements of the public picture Kelly and Armstrong have painted.

Like Kelly, Gunderson has been married four times, and he now works in real estate in Dallas. He says their accounts of him beating Kelly are overstated: "I only remember slapping her once."

Such was Gunderson’s bitterness at being totally excluded from his son’s life, despite not wanting to be involved it himself during Armstrong’s early years, that he was hoping Armstrong would not win his first Tour in 1999. “I was his worst supporter,” he says. “I didn’t want him to win at all, but after that I changed my mind. I’ve always enjoyed his victories. Last year I said to myself: ‘I am the only father in the world who can say that my son has won the Tour de France six times.’”

I don't know if anybody has successfully psycholanalyzed Lance Armstrong, but everybody who tries agrees his relationship (or its lack) with this man is key to how he turned out.

Stage 2 wrap-ups

VeloNews | Zabriskie, Boonen grab the headlines

Some jersey swaps tonight, as Thomas Voeckler will be the first man to wear the polka-dot jersey, Tom Boonen will put on the green jersey (and Boonen has a much better chance of finishing with his), and Sylvain Calzati of AG2R will ride tomorrow with the red race numbers of the most aggressive rider, for his part in today's suicide break.

Even more bad news for Jan Ullrich: He held position near the front of the field today at the finish, and a time gap opened, but judges eventually ruled the gap was caused by the crash, and gave riders on both sides of the gap the same time. That's why you may see Ullrich in 8th at some websites.

The correct Top 10 on GC:
1) David Zabriskie, CSC, 4:12:22
2) Lance Armstrong, Discovery, at :02
3) Laszlo Bodrogi, Credit Agricole, at :47
4) Alexandre Vinokourov, T-Mobile, at :53
5) George Hincapie, Discovery, at :57
6) Floyd Landis, Phonak, at 1:02
7) Fabian Cancellara, Fassa Bortolo, at 1:02
8) Jens Voigt, CSC, at 1:04
9) Vladimir Karpets, Illes Balears, at 1:05
10) Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, Liberty Seguros, at 1:06

Also:

Yahoo! Sports | No teething problems for Boonen as he takes stage

procycling.com | St 2: Good day, bad day

Although clearly a rip-off of DailyPeloton's hilarious Jambon Report, I couldn't help quoting from procycling's “Good day, bad day,” itself quoting Dave Zabriskie on Bjarne Riis' much-ballyhooed offseason Outward Bound-style team-building exercises:

“We learn about team spirit when we’re in the woods, staring death in the face. Not a lot of people know this, but I didn’t finish the camp this year. I was in hospital, staring death in the face. It helped me to be the man I am today… I can’t wait to do it again next year.”

Keep your eyes peeled for updates at DaveZabriskie.com — Z is pretty funny.

letour.fr | Stage Standings | Overall Standings

Stage 1 TT graph

Z and Tex: 2 kms/hour up on the whole field

Robert Chung has traditionally taken big-league time trials and graphed the riders with 1st half average speed on 1 axis and 2nd half average speed on the other. He posts the results to the Usenet news group rec.bicycles.racing.

The graphs have occasionally been reposted when riders who were clearly outliers, riding significantly faster than everyone else, later turn up with positive drug tests. David Millar's (later revoked) TT world championship was one such case, Tyler Hamilton's (later revoked) Vuelta TT win was another. Here's a post that links four of those.

He's posted his graph for yesterday's Stage 1, a small part of which is reproduced at right. Here's the whole thing and the discussion of it on rec.bicycles.racing.

This graph gives you a good idea of how dominant Zabriskie and Armstrong were yesterday.

Also:

Bicycling.com | Floyd's Performance: Stage 1

At Bicycling, Allen Lim looks at this from the other direction, estimating the drag and power for each of the riders in the top 10 yesterday. For Landis, they have measured numbers, since he's riding with a PowerTap rear hub.

Boonen takes Stage 2, green jersey

Quick Step's Tom Boonen outsprinted the field to take the first sprint finish of the 2005 Tour.

The 25-year-old has had a terrific season, winning Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, two stages at Paris-Nice, and the Tour of Belgium. He took Stage 7 and Stage 21 of last year's Tour, as well.

One of the very interesting subplots this year is the battle for the green jersey: Boonen, Hushovd, and McEwen are the favorites, and Boonen takes the early lead in that competition.

Top 10 (all same time):

1) Tom Boonen, Quick Step, 3:51:31
2) Thor Hushovd, Credit Agricole
3) Robbie McEwen, Davitamon-Lotto
4) Stuart O'Grady, Cofidis
5) Luciano Pagliarini, Liquigas-Bianchi
6) Juan Antonio Flecha, Fassa Bortolo
7) Peter Wrolich, Gerolsteiner
8) Jerome Pineau, Bouygues Telecom
9) Baden Cooke, Française Des Jeux
10) Allan Davis, Liberty Seguros

I was discounting O'Grady this year, but that's a pretty competitive placing.

There was a late crash featuring Samuel Dumoulin; I guess this is as good a time as any to note that the “last 1 km” rule is now a “last 3 km” rule, where riders who crash in the peloton in the last 3 kilometers get the same time as the main field.

Armstrong post-race quote:

“I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.”

Bodrogi moves up into 3rd on the GC, based on an intermediate sprint bonus.

Also:

Yahoo! Sport | Boonen scares Belgium by almost quitting

Stage 2 underway

We have the 2005 Tour's first doomed break! Out in front Sylvain Calzati, Thomas Voeckler, Laszlo Bodrogi, and David Canada flew their team flags, at one point around 3:30 up on the field.

Voeckler is the rider who got into an opportunistic break in last year's Tour (while the French national champion, no less) and wore the yellow jersey for 10 days, fighting and scratching to hold on to it as the race headed into the Alps. He then held the young rider's white jersey until the final TT, when Vladimir Karpets took over the lead in that competition.

Lance Armstrong is wearing the green jersey today, since David Zabriskie can only wear one jersey at a time. Whoever wins the stage today will become the first real green jersey.

It's a very easy course profile today, and only 181 kilometers, or around 110 miles.

Everybody and his brother is predicting McEwen today; I'm going to be contrarian, and go with Quick Step's Tom Boonen. McEwen will be adjusting to a new lead-out man, American Fast Freddie Rodriguez. Other sprinters to watch: Baden Cooke and Thor Hushovd.

There's a 4th category climb coming up, and if the break can survive to the top, one of its riders will wear the mountain jersey for at least tonight.

The breakaway has survived, and will contest the polka-dot jersey; David Cañada launched an attack and gapped the group, and now Voeckler slingshots off of Calzati, bridges up to Cañada, and sprints away from him with 50-75 meters to ride. At the top, he's over first, so he'll wear his third different Tour jersey (yellow, white, polka-dot).

Bodrogi falls back into the field, leaving three leaders to catch. Erik Dekker tries a late attack, but FdJ puts Carlos da Cruz on his back wheel, and he can't make it stick.

With 6 kms to ride, the breakaway is absorbed. It's a sprint finish with some turns; could get dicey.

In the last 2 kms, a couple of opportunistic attacks from Beneteau and Zaballa, but for nothing.

It's the big boys for the sprints: McEwen may have jumped a little early, and Tom Boonen gets his back wheel and comes around him for the win. Thor Hushovd is right there.