14 July 2007

Field has been shattered

Peloton of favorties shows up at the finish of Stage 7 almost four minutes back.

In a post-ride interview, Levi Leipheimer said that today went as expected and "Tomorrow's a hard day."

Stage 8 comes up in less than 24 hours.

Gerdemann is in the lead by 00:01:24.

Kloden is back 00:03:39.

Leipheimer is back 00:04:06

Hincapie is back (after being dropped on the final climb) 00:07:15

WOW.

Stage 7 Winner

SPOILER

LINUS Gerdemann wins!!

Takes Stage 7 in a commanding way and takes over YELLOW! The first change of the Yellow Jersey in the 2007 Tour de France.

Gerdemann rides for T-Mobile. More to come later.

180 Riders Left in the Tour

I know the theme today has been riders remaining. But Stage 7 will certainly shake out the pack and I bet that no fewer than three more riders will abandon by the end of today.

Here's the overnight info from Versus (minus the abandon/non-abandon and re-abandon of Enrico Degano).

26 Nations Represented In 94th Tour

The 180 riders remaining in the 2007 Tour de France represent 26 countries.
The breakdown is:
37 – Spain. Eduardo Gonzalo Ramirez (AGR) abandoned during stage one after a crash; Xabier Zandio (GCE) abandoned during stage four because of injuries sustained in a crash in stage one. Oscar Freire (RAB) and Rubens Lobato (SDV) didn’t start stage seven.
34 – France. Remy Di Gregorio (FDJ) didn’t start stage five after fracturing his elbow in a fall early in stage four. Geoffroy Lequartre (COF) didn’t start stage six after being caught up in a crash in stage five.
19 – Germany
17 – Italy. Enrico Degano (BAR) abandoned during stage seven.
13 – Belgium
7 – The Netherlands
6 – USA and Russia
5 – Great Britain, Switzerland and Australia. Brett Lancaster (MRM) abandoned during the fifth stage.
4 – Kazakhstan
3 – Austria and Colombia
2 – Belarus, Luxembourg, Norway and Ukraine
1 – South Africa, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden
Lithuania had one reprentative but Toomas Vaitkus didn’t start stage three because of a broken thumb sustained in a crash at the end of stage two.

AND Now for some news

About an hour into the race, Enrico Degano has abandoned the 2007 Tour de France. I confirmed this with a number of sources just to be sure.

ERROR

Here's the apology from Versus Network. They rushed to report that a rider had abandoned yesterday, but they were wrong. Seems to me that the event is televised on Eurosport too, so couldn't they just look at the tape and see if a rider gets into a team car or an ambulance? I shake my head at shoddy reporting.

Correction: Enrico Degano Still In The Race

One of the Barloworld riders, Enrico Degano crashed in the feedzone of the sixth stage. It was announced during the live coverage on LeTour.fr (and in the stage summary) that the Italian sprinter – who currently holds the position of ‘Lanterne Rouge’ in the 2007 Tour de France – had, in fact, abandoned the race. This is incorrect and we offer our sincere apologies for any confusion caused by this error.
His team manager, Claudio Corti was contacted this morning by LeTour.fr and he explained that Degano did sustain some injuries in the crash but he still found the energy to finished 16th in the stage to Bourg-en-Bresse. “It will be difficult for him in the mountains today,” said Corti, “but hopefully we’ll have other riders who can perform in the mountains like the Colombians Felix Cardenas and Juan Soler.”
Once again, apologies for the error in yesterday’s report and best wishes to Mr Degano today.

Stage 7

The photos below are from Stage 7 of the Tour de France with about 60KM left to ride.

I mention that because some readers (Tim McGuire for instance) are out in California and are probably still in bed as I write this. And he's certainly still in bed when the Tour begins each day.

Dear Tim - and others who don't want spoilers: Going forward each post will have SPOILER in the title if it gives away a 'critical' part of that stage's info. That would include the stage winner, an abandonment of someone notable, and a clear change of leadership in Yellow.

Keep reading and be assured that we've got your best interests at heart.