|
Stage 2, July 3 -- Challans - Les Essarts
Well, as expected, not much happened today. A flat stage, and one for the sprinters, none of the big names poked out their heads. There was a breakaway for most of the stage, notably containing Thomas Voekler, the Frenchman who made everyone love him after wearing yellow for 10 days last year, and fighting doggedly to keep it far beyond when anyone had expected. He managed to secure the polka-dot jersey today on the only climb of the race, a category 4 hill (hills/mountains are rated from 5 to 1, with a 5 being the smallest, and a 1 being the hardest... then there is HC, or hors categorie, literally beyond category, the real monsters). But, the breakaway was caught, with the stage coming down to a field sprint. Tom Boonen, the yound former US Postal rider, and winner of this year's Hell of the North, Paris-Roubaix, took the sprint from right under the nose of an unsuspecting Robbie McEwen, who jumped for the line just a bit too soon, surging across the line with a full bike's length between him and his nearest competitor--a mile in the land of sprints.
__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato
|