Tour de France – Stage 10 Results

July 14th, 2008 by Ron Callahan View Comments

Today is Bastille Day in France, so the roads will likely be packed with rowdy French fans today.

It’s a fairly short stage going in to tomorrow’s rest day, but it’s anything but easy with the Hors Category 2115m Col de Tourmalet coming at km 106 and a finish at HC Hautacam (156km).

I just read that each time that there has been a stage completing in Hautacam, that the yellow jersey holder after the stage has worn it all the way to Paris. Hmm. 13 long days until the race hits Champs-Elysees.

There was a big break this morning with 24 riders cruising out to a 1’40″ lead by km 22.

David de la Fuente (Saunier Duval) was one of the 24 and he grabbed the KOM points at Cote de Benejacq.

Oscar Freire (Rabobank) was in the big group as well and he takes the first intermediate sprint at km 44.

By km 61, the lead has dropped to 35 seconds and all but 7 riders have dropped back into the peloton.

Leonardo Duque (Cofidis) grabs the KOM points at Loucrup.

Many in the peloton stop for a “bio break” and this allows the leaders to stretch their gap a little. It goes up to 1’13″ quickly and balloons up to seven minutes as break hits the base to the Col de Tourmalet (km 84). As the peloton starts to roll uphill, they realize that they may have let things get a little out of hand. Saunier-Duval is sitting at the front and pouring on the pressure.

Up in the break, Remy di Gregorio (Francaise de Jeux) attacks off the front of the break, aiming for a big cash prize to be the first to the top of Col de Tourmalet.

As the pace in the peloton ramps up, riders start to get spit out the back of the peloton. George Hincapie (Columbia), Damiano Cunego and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) are just a few of the notables. CSC is at the front now, with the Schleck brothers and Fabian Cancellera laying it down.

Di Gregorio picked up the big prize on Col de Tourmalet and as the leaders head down the backside of this mountain, they are hitting speeds of up to 80 km/h! Di Gregorio had built a solo lead of 2’20″, but as the peloton crested the mountain they quickly ate into his lead and it was down to 40 seconds in short order. and chasers are spread out all over the roads.

As the road tilts up again for the finish at Hautacam, di Gregorio is done and Frank Schleck (CSC), Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval), Kohl (Gerolsteiner) and Ricardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) move to the front. Schleck looked like a contendor for the yellow jersey, but Cobo and Piepoli go for it and pull out a gap on Schleck. Evans is behind Schleck, pushing it as well.

Piepoli crosses the line first, with teammate Cobo just behind. Schleck comes in 28 seconds later, totally spent. The peloton is nearly a minute and a half back.

Cadel Evans finishes with the peloton, but close enough to move into yellow when the race returns on Wednesday. He is just 1 second ahead of Frank Schleck, who was hoping he would be the man in yellow. It was another good day for American Christian Vande Velde who sits third in the general classification, just 38 second off of the lead.