In the most insignificant stage on paper, the Tour has found the fraction that can reopen the centenary edition: a day you can't imagine with Contador and Saxo Tinkoff putting Chris Froome in crisis for the first time by inflicting more than a minute on the one who until 24 hours before seemed to be the absolute master of the race; with Valverde, who dismounted from a puncture, he ends up out of the Tour, losing almost 10 minutes; with Cavendish, who with his Omega Pharma pedals like hell to eliminate the other sprinters, first KIttel and Degenkolb, then Greipel, to then deal with Sagan and easily beat him to the finish line taking his second victory in this Tour, the 25th in total reaching Andre Leducq.
A stage with unpredictable developments, that of yesterday, all to be relived and told since its inception from Tours. It was hot and sunny, but also a strong wind blowing sideways forcing the runners to form and unfold fans, a dangerous game of skill which ended up breaking the peloton into two sections; very long straight stretches that deceive those behind that they can catch up, seeing them down there, those in front, but instead of decreasing the gap grows so much as to unnerve and demoralize the pursuers until they surrender. A 173km stage in the flat heart of France, the Tours-Saint-Amand-Montrond turned, after around 70km of racing, into a nightmarish odyssey for Alejandro Valverde, who suffered a puncture while in the leading group with all the best, shot to death by Cavendish and his companions from Omega Pharma who wanted to put Marcel Kittel out of the game: the German sprinter, who showed Cannonball the green rats in Saint-Malo and Tours, had remained ensconced in the second group.
Valverde set foot on the ground, at the worst moment, in a straight stretch beaten by the wind, without the car of the house which with the others had been stopped behind Kittel's group because the gap between the two sections at that moment did not exceed one minute. The Spaniard made a capital mistake: instead of getting the bike from his teammate, Castroviejo, he preferred to just change the wheel, wasting precious time in the process. With the exception of Quintana all the Movistars, including Rui Costa who was ninth in the standings at Tours, were stopped to lend a hand to the captain and defend his second place behind Froome. The Movistars seemed one step away from returning but in the leading group also the Belkins had started shooting as soon as they saw Valverde in difficulty: the goal for Mollema and Ten Dam, the two Belgians in the standings, of climbing the one behind the yellow jersey and the other in the top five.
Valverde and his coequipiers not only were no longer able to catch up with the leading group, but after about ten kilometers in which they had wrung their necks without any profit, they were sucked into Kittel's group, which by now had resigned itself to defeat. Valverde's delay grew until it assumed the dimensions of an abyss so as to compromise even the leadership of the team classification which saw Movistar clearly in the lead until yesterday morning with the yellow helmet, symbol of primacy, ahead of its athletes. For Froome, who at that moment of the race was still solidly in first place, an ideal situation lay ahead: he was pushing away his rival who was less disappointing than others until yesterday, without even giving the impression of wanting to take advantage of his misfortune. But Froome's serenity did not last long.
Just one of the great disappointments of the Tour was about to ambush him that could change the course of the Grande Boucle: it was Contador with five other companions of the Saxo, who at about thirty km to the finish took advantage of a gust of wind which disunited the leading group. The fan was doubled: in front remained a wild Contador with five companions, Kreuziger, Roche, Bennati, Tosatto and Rogers who triggered an infernal tussle by pulling at full speed, as if it were a team time trial. Suddenly even Froome was gasping: for the first time in this Tour the yellow jersey appeared surprised and disoriented. Only eight of them managed to keep up with the Saxo-Tinkoff train: they were Mollema and Ten Dam from Belkin, Fuglsang from Astana, all three interested in recovering as much as possible on the broken down yellow jersey; among the sprinters, to fight for the stage victory, even Greipel fell away, only Cavendish and Sagan remained in the race: the Englishman had two companions with him, the French Chavanel and the Dutch Terpstra, the Slovakian from Cannondale only one, the Pole Bodnar. Ten, twenty seconds, half a minute and even more: Froome gave the impression of not reacting like other times, almost discouraged in the face of the shoddy help that his teammates were offering him, those few who remained with him anyway.
Putting aside the boldness of the last few days, Froome stayed in the middle of the second group pulled for a while especially by Greipel, until the big German convinced himself that those in front were now uncatchable. As for Evans, Sckleck and Quintana, the only survivor of the Movistar defeat, didn't seem very interested in giving a hand to the yellow jersey. The stage resulted in a head-to-head between Cavendish and Sagan with the Englishman, truly exceptional yesterday, who comfortably beat the Slovakian in the green jersey, savoring the taste of triumph again. But for the fates at the top of the Tour, the great winner of Saint-Amand-Montrond was Contador, who on the eve of the final week, gave a vital jolt to the environment rather chloroformed by Froome's domination, to the point of boredom.
At the finish line, regulated by Greipel, the yellow jersey group accused a delay of 1'09'': nothing compromised for the white Kenyan but the Tour - which today will arrive in Lyon with a stage full of ups and downs, appetizer of tomorrow's Ventoux – relaunched with authority the most famous racer, that Alberto Contador who must have remembered yesterday as never before the sarcastic warning that Lance Armstrong gave him one day: «How can you win if you don't run in front! ». Some riders were already in the shower when Valverde's group arrived at 9'58''. For the Spaniard yesterday the standings became a precipice from second place to 16th over 12 minutes behind Froome. Second, behind the Englishman in yellow, is now Mollema at 2'28. Contador follows third with a gap reduced to 2'46'', fourth is Kreuziger at 2'48'', fifth is Ten Dam at 3'01''. Then Fuglsang at 4'39'' and then Kwiatkowski, leader of the youngsters, at 4'44''. The only one from Movistar who has remained in the top ten of the standings is the Colombian Nairo Quintana, who arrived yesterday at the finish line with the group of Froome and Kwiatkowski, his direct rival in the fight for the white jersey.
