Tour de France - A Mountain of Work

The time it took Carlos Sastre to climb the Alpe d’Huez yesterday was nearly a full 2 minutes slower than the record of 37 minutes and 35 seconds set up the late Marco Pantani. Whatever your views on that record the big question is, was it fast enough and far enough ahead of Cadel Evans to win the Tour? My gut feeling is no.

Although Carlos’ ability against the clock as improved greatly over the years it is not a match to the Australian’s, especially over a longer distance. Any rival to Evans from the CSC squad will need to go into the final 53km time trial between Cerilly and Saint-Amand-Montrand with an advantage closer to 3 minutes than the current one the Spaniard has at significantly under 2.

I hear a lot of comment and read a lot of e-mails from fans who consider Evan’s cautious and dogged riding as somehow too unspectacular to be worthy of a Tour de France win. Well I say you’re wrong. It may not be spectacular but it is proving effective. The Australian is not gifted with lightening acceleration in the mountains, neither does he have the ability to sprint but he is making the very most of all the abilities that he does possess and that is to be applauded.

So what if he takes the victory in the time trial? Plenty of Tour victories have been sealed against the clock and been no lesser achievements for it. In fact all the greatest tour winners have been characterised by their superiority in time trails. Indurain and Armstrong made it a habit, Hinault and Lemond excelled and triumphed against the odds through it but perhaps the greatest example was Anquetil who could climb alongside the best to limit his time losses and then crush his opponents against the clock.

Whilst Carlos Sastre now has a shot at finally taking victory in the Tour it’s a mystery to me why CSC didn’t send Andy Schleck up the road to help him. Instead he stayed with brother Frank in the group containing Evans and the two of them watched and waited to see whether the Australian would crack. Instead if Schleck younger had helped Sastre to gain even 30 seconds more on Evans, then perhaps I would be writing a different article.

CSC still have work to do to win this Tour de France. The question is, will then have the courage to attack Evans again today or tomorrow or will they gamble on in ‘the race of truth’ on stage 20? The stakes are high and if I were a betting man, my money would still be on Evans.