Today was also an Alpine stage, the last before heading south towards the Mediterranean and then the Pyrenees, but as the Col du Grand-Cucheron and the Col du Granier were located, both in the first 80 of the 226 km from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Annonay-Davezieux, the fraction has turned into a simple transfer stage, with the group – as happened in the Tours at the time of the national and regional teams – which let five non-ranking riders go on the run, paying little attention to the gap that traveled more than a dozen minutes in the middle of the race.
Upon arrival, the fugitives kept about half of them and it was the Scotsman David Millar, a revenant from the hell of doping, who beat his team mates in the sprint. A victory that strengthens the British dominance over the 2012 Tour, dedicated to Tommy Simpson on the day of the 45th anniversary of the tragic death of the English champion who collapsed exhausted on the burning stony ground of the Ventoux. It was the 1967 Tour, the one won by the Frenchman Roger Pingeon and lost by Felice Gimondi due to a stomach ache. Simpson was the first British rider to establish himself in big cycling. Victory in the 1964 world championship earned him a baronetcy by the Queen.
Today's Tour, having crossed the Alps, is really more and more under the sign of the Union Jack. Yellow jersey Bradley Wiggins, second at 2' 05” Christopher Froome: never have the Sky men been close to absolute domination as in this Tour, and yet, after the rebellious burst of Froome on the ascent to La Toussuire, have never been so close to a breakdown of nerves. Since yesterday "the friendly fire" of which Wiggins could fall victim at the hands of one of his followers, Froome ", is the key topic of the Tour. So during an insignificant stage like today's, the longest of this edition, there is no watching the film several times spoke of something else about what happened in Thursday's Alpine stage. An unrealistic attack by Evans on the Grandon, two more convincing shots by Nibali on the final ramp: for Wiggins a dreaded day was ending in the best possible way after having made his squires work their best on the various cols of the day: Boasson-Hagen on the Col de la Madeleine, on the Croix-de -Fer Knees, who then passed the baton to Rogers on the Col du Mollard.
For the final break, Sky put Porte at Wiggins' service first for the initial part and then Froome for the last kilometres, the most difficult ones in which Nibali attempted to break the bank. Having reached the "shark" it was Froome himself who blew the bank with a forceful lunge when Wiggins was refusing his breath. The wingman had in fact left the captain in the lurch making him fall prey to the first real moment of panic of this Tour. It took a furious rebuke via earphone from Sean Yates, Sky team manager, to stop Froome who had to brake to wait for Wiggins.
Team Sky tried today to stem the controversy. Wiggins has done everything to debunk what happened. Yates, at the start this morning, reiterated that there is no conspiracy at Sky's house and that Wiggins remains number one for the Tour. But the evidence also remains that Froome is certainly much stronger than Wiggins in the mountains and that without the team orders could also win this Tour which does not line up any champions. A situation that has arisen in the Ski house which is not new in the history of the Tours. It recalls that of 1985 when Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond they ran under the same colors as Bernard Tapie's Vie Claire. Hinault was the captain, and in the yellow jersey too, but in the Pyrenees he went into crisis and the American, who had already won the first of his two world titles, was raring to go. On the run on the Aubisque with Stephen Roche he was about to win the yellow jersey when a diktat from the sporting director ordered him not to collaborate with the Irishman. Hinault was safe. He would go on to win his fifth Tour, which was also the last success of a Frenchman in the Grande Boucle.
Also in 1996 a scenario quite similar to that of this year's Tour presented itself again. The rivalry, kept fairly under control at the time, was simmering within the German TTelecom between Bjarne Rijs and Jan Ullrich. He won the Dane but if Ullrich had been free from team orders he would certainly have made life much more difficult for Rijs. Tour that had a tail of poison when Rijs, now team manager of Contador's Saxo, admitted to having used epo. So he too is one of those Tour winners that Wiggins, with courage and candor, defines as "fake" because they won more with syringes than with their legs. Meanwhile, however this Tour ends, one thing is already certain: the paths of Wiggins and Froome after Paris will separate, much sooner than expected.
