Stage 14 - Tactical Welfare

While Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador played games the rest of the GC contenders raced on Sunday, and managed to put a little bit of time into the two race leaders by the end of Stage 14, a 185km race from Revel to Ax-3-Domaines. However, the win on the day went to little known frenchman Christophe Riblon who was the sole survivor of the days nine-man break. Denis Menchov and Samuel Sanchez finished second and third respectively.

But the day was memorable for the extreme tactical battle between Contador and Schleck, who at times came to a standstill on the final climb a la track-sprinters with neither rider wanting to lead the other. The fear was that as soon as one of the riders slipped to the front, his rival would unleash a blistering attack. As a result, Contador and Schleck watched each other and ignored totally the moves and form of their nearest GC rivals (now Sanchez and Menchov over 2:30 back). At times the two were dropped by the rest of the elite brigade while they played their little games and one may have thought they were both having terrible days and simply could not keep up. You would have to give such two great riders the benefit of the doubt however and presume they were just shadow boxing. As evidence of this Contador did put in a couple of stinging attacks which were easily matched by Schleck, but put everyone else except Menchov immediatley into difficulty, and only Sanchez could also drag himself back up to the lead once the big two had attacked. So in short, this was almost a test stage before the fireworks will surely have to start from either Contador or Schleck in one of the remaining three days in the Pyrenees. With Schleck and Contador finishing together there was no change at the top of the overall standings and Schleck continues to hold onto both the Yellow and White Jersey's.

Up front, Christophe Riblon was the race (as Paul and Phil would say). He dropped his breakaway rivals at the top of the penultimate climb of the Port de Pailhères and descended solo before surviving the final climb up to Ax-3-Domaines to take his first ever stage win and only the 5th race victory of his career! In the end he had just under a minute to spare from the rampaging Denis Menchov and Sammy Sanchez who powered up the climb in an attempt to put time between themselves and Schleck and Contador. But by the finish the two only gained around 14 seconds on their rivals with Schleck leading in the rest of the elite group of five riders (Rodriguez, Gesink, Contador, and Van Den Broeck). Looking at the current general classification you would think the battle for third is down to Sanchez (3rd) and Menchov (4th). They have shown no real weakness in the climbs thus far and are more than compotent at the time trial caper, especially in races against the clock in the final week of a Grand Tour.

Anthony Charteau was able to increase his lead in the King of the Mountains classification to 23 points over Jerome Pineau after he led the peleton over the Port de Pailhères. Still he is more of an opportunist climber than a pure mountain man and with a stack of climbs to come in the Pyrenees I still don't think he will be the final wearer of the Polka Dot Jersey. With the sprinters trailing in in the groupetto there was no change to the standings in the Points classification.

Yellow Jersey - Andy Schleck
Green Jersey - Alessandro Pettachi
Polka Dot Jersey - Anthony Charteau
White Jersey - Andy Schleck

Tonight's Stage - The trek through the Pyrenees continues with the famous climb of the Portet d'Aspet coming halfway through Stage 15, a 187km ride from Pamiers to Bagneres-de-Luchon. However the brute of the day is the HC climb of the Port de Bales which peaks just over 20km from the finish. With the stage ending with a descent into Bageneres-de-Luchon I'm not sure whether we will see an attack coming from either Schleck or Contador, but with the climb most likely to thin out the peleton to all but the elite mountain riders I will tip Joaqin Rodriguez to bag his second stage win of this years Tour.