After a bad day yesterday, Vinokourov and Botero rode very well today to stay off the front over some huge climbs, and Vino took the stage win. Often when two riders reach the end of a long breakaway, they'll play cat-and-mouse games with each other in order to win the stage. But Vino and Botero have so much class. When they reached the final kilometer or so, they rode alongside each other and did a straight-up sprint. It's a pity when one rider has to lose, especially for guys like them. But unfortunately for Botero, Vino really wanted to win (you could see how much power he was delivering by watching his back wheel). Other highlights from today: Boonen crashed while descending Courchevel, and seems to have hurt his knee pretty badly, but he managed to finish the stage. A lot of the big names finished in the yellow jersey group, but a few didn't do so well. Roberto Heras was among them, finishing more than 16 minutes behind Lance. I noticed that Manuel Beltran and Jose Luis Rubiera (fellow Spaniards and former teammates of Heras) finished the stage with Heras, which is very cool for them to support each other despite being on different teams (they came across the line in 43rd, 44th, and 45th position). Iban Mayo also had another crap day, finishing more than 22 minutes off the pace. Ouch. |
