Sabotage at the Tour?

At the top of the final climb of the day, defending champion Cadel Evans suffered a flat tire, shouted for teammate (and white jersey holder) Tejay Vangarderen for help, Tejay looked at him, seemed to sense his trouble, but kept riding, then Cadel was literally left alone (the team cars were far behind), hoping for a BMC teammate to arrive to lend him a tire.  When Steve Cummings finally came, he had a flat back tire as well!  So no help there.  By the time the team managed to get him a working rear wheel, Cadel was close to a couple minutes down on the yellow jersey group, who were over 15 minutes behind the leaders of the stage.  But the race radios were going crazy with news of flat after flat after flat -- not just Evans and his teammates -- upwards of 30 flat tires on the stage.  Cadel had to stop again when he realized his front tire was flat as well, then again when he suffered some other mechanical and/or flat.  By that time, Team Sky and leader Wiggins had some idea that something was amiss and ordered his team to sit up, stop racing, and wait for Cadel to catch up.  Pierre Rolland, perhaps merely oblivious, took off ahead and had at one point 2 minutes on the yellow jersey group, potentially threatening the placings of Team Lotto's Jurgen Van Den Broeck, and they started chasing him down.  Rolland was in 9th overall going in, VDB was in 5th so it was debatable.  Eventually, 3rd place Vincenzo Nibali's teammates at Liquigas joined in on the pacemaking, perhaps sensing an opportunity to put some time into 4th place Cadel, but Cadel now had all his teammates at BMC around him (save for Vangarderen, who is 7th overall and did not stop to help, perhaps "unintentionally") and eventually the BMC team closed out the final 45 seconds to catch the yellow jersey group.  Word I guess had already gotten to Rolland to come back to the group and he sat up, leaving all the race leaders together as one, with no change in the overall.  And as you can see in the picture above, the reason for all the flats is appartently because a spectator threw tacks onto the road right before the leaders got to that point, trying in fact to sabotage the race.  Shocking turn of events, this.  Crazy, crazy shit.

Up ahead, the five man group who had surged on the final mountain to pull free of a larger breakaway, were racing for the victory.  This group included 3 time stage winners in breakaway situations Luis Leon Sanchez and Sandy Casar, classics champion and former stage winner Phillip Gilbert, Euskaltel climber Gorka Izagirre, and the man of the 2012 Tour de France so far (even more dominant than yellow jersey holder Wiggins), 3-time stage winner already, the 22-year-old Peter Sagan.  Sagan managed to somehow stay with these much more renowned racers and decent climbers over the Cat-1 mountain and then instantly became the heavy favorite to win his 4th stage this year, since he is a dominant sprinter.  But Lulu Sanchez hit him and the others with a surprise attack at the 10km to go mark and no one could go with him.  Sanchez eventually built up a 20 then 30 then 40 second lead and it became evident that he, not Sagan (or Casar) would become a 4-time Tour de France stage winner on this day.  David Millar, interestingly, won his 4th stage all-time on Friday in a breakaway that also held, but it was his first stage win since way back in 2003.  Sanchez has now won a stage in 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012.  Very impressive day for the Spanish member of the devastated Dutch Rabobank team, who are actually down to only 4 riders left of the 9 who started.  But an equally impressive day for Sagan, who all but sealed his already iron grip on the Green sprinters' jersey, as his 2nd place on the day pushed him out to an 80-point lead on Saturday's winner Andre Greipel (who actually also got his 4th overall stage in the Tour on Saturday -- 3 days in a row!).  Sagan has gone from future star of cycling to current star of cycling in the span of 2 weeks at the Tour.  Looking forward to many years of him dominating in sprints, the classics, grand tours, and yes, maybe even the mountains.  Great day for Sagan, great day for Sanchez, great weekend for Millar and Greipel.  But a really odd, sad day for the overall title, with only strange things going on and no one actually attacking since Thursday (besides Rolland's cheeky attempt).  Today is a sprint stage to be likely decided between Greipel and Sagan (unless Cavendish finally reappears) and then a rest day before the final week in the Pyrenees where Nibali and VDB and Evans have their last desperate chance to dislodge Team Sky from the top two spots on the podium going to Paris.

the Inner Ring ‏@inrng

Sagan tells TV that when he's bored of winning one day classics he'll think about losing muscle mass to try and win a grand tour.

Stage Results

1. Luis Leon Sanchez, Rabobank
2. Peter Sagan, Liquigas, at 0.47
3. Sandy Casar, FDJ, s.t.
4. Philippe Gilbert, BMC, s.t.
5. Gorka Izagirre, Euskaltel, s.t.

General Classification

1. Bradley Wiggins, Sky
2. Chris Froome, Sky, at 2.05
3. Vincenzo Nibali, Liquigas, at 2.23
4. Cadel Evans, BMC, at 3.19
5. Jurgen Van Den Broeck, Lotto, at 4.48

Young Rider Classification

1. Tejay Van Garderen, BMC
2. Thibaut Pinot, FDJ at 1.54

 

Points Classification

1. Sagan, 316 points
2. Greipel, 236
3. Matt Goss, Orica-GreenEdge, 203

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