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| Stage 11 winner Tony Martin on the podium |
The stage 11 individual time
trial shook up the overall standings on Wednesday, mostly in Chris Froome’s
favor. Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde is trailing Froome by 3:25 in second
place. Bauke Mollema of Belkin retained third place, and now trails Froome by
3:37. Froome has a comfortable buffer now, going into the next few stages. The
GC won’t get another real shake up until stage 15 to the stark summit of Mont
Ventoux.
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| Stage 12 on the map |
Alberto Contador and Laurens
Ten Dam swapped GC spots after the TT, “El Pistolero” taking fourth and Mollema’s
teammate Ten Dam down to sixth. Roman Kreuziger held onto fifth place, and sits
just behind his team leader, Contador.
With a fifth place finish in
the TT, young Michal Kwiatkowski, Omega Pharma-Quickstep’s young Polish talent,
moved himself well up in the standings from thirteenth overall to seventh. He
also reclaimed the white jersey off the back of Movistar’s Nairo Quintana, and
now leads the Colombian in that competition by :34. Quintana dropped one spot
from seventh to eighth today. Roman Bardet the rider in third place among young
riders, trails Kwiatkowski by 6:53. It really looks like a two-man duel for the
white jersey from here on.
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| Stage 12 cuts southeast to Tours |
Another Movistar talent, Rui
Costa climbed from tenth to ninth overall. The new top-ten is rounded out by
Jean-Christophe Peraud of Ag2R, whose top-20 finish in the TT was good enough
to move him up from 14th to tenth. Team Katusha’s Joaquim Rodriguez
and Garmin’s Dan Martin dropped out of the top ten.
Omega Pharma-Quickstep was
the best team of the day in the TT, with Tony Martin, Michal Kwiatkowski and
Sylvain Chavanel all finishing inside the top ten.
Movistar retains the lead in
the overall team competition.
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| Stage 12 Profile |
Weather is expected to be
28c (82f) and sunny for stage 12.
Stage 12 is a 218-kilometer
mostly flat run from Fougeres to Tours. It is the first of three consecutive
stages that cut southeast across France toward the Tour’s rendezvous with the
Alps.
The sprinters will do their
best to force a bunch sprint finish. Marcel Kittel of Argos Shimano was the
first to score two stage wins, but Peter Sagan is holding on to a comfortable
lead in the green jersey competition. Mark Cavendish and André Greipel will
work to get their lead-out trains firing on all cylinders to set them up for a
shot at the stage win.
MY PICK: I am going with Mark Cavendish for stage 12. I am
counting on him coming back from the stage 11 urine-tossing incident full of
fire and eager to prove something.
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| Combined profile for the next three stages, 12-14 |
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