Stage 15 - Technical Difficulties

Alberto Contador controversially stole the Yellow Jersey from Andy Schleck on Stage 15, an 187km trip from Pamiers to Bagneres-de-Luchon. Thomas Voeckler was the French hereo on the day, taking the stage win to deliver the French their first back-to-back victories in over 5 years. He attacked his breakaway rivals on the final climb, and held his advantage on the descent to win from former world champion Alessandro Ballan and Aitor Perez who were second and third respectively.

But all the debate this morning will surround the transfer of the Yellow Jersey from Schleck to Contador. With the two in the elite group climing the HC Port de Balès, Schleck attacked and seemed to have put Contador into difficulty, getting a 20 metre break on his rival. Just at that moment Schleck dropped his chain, which got caught in his wheel, jamming his bike. He had to pull over to the side of the road to fix the problem. Cycling ettiquete suggests that the race leader should not be attacked when he is suffering from a technical problem, but Contador threw all that in the bin and chose that moment to attack. It was a dog act! With his main rival sitting helpless on the side of the road and unable to respond, Contador surged up the final kilometres putting almost a minute into Schleck while he waited in vain on the side of the road. Once Schleck finally was able to restart riding he maintained the gap to Contador (who was with a group that included Denis Menchov, Samuel Sanchez, and Robert Gesink) but the bird had flown. By the finish on the descent Schleck had lost 39 seconds to Contador, which saw the Spainiard take the lead in the general classification by 8 seconds. Sanchez and Menchov continue to battle for third just under 2 minutes back.

Let's be clear - it was an atrocious attack from Contador that goes against every gentleman's agreement that exists in the sport. His jersey is tarnished and I hope he suffers similar technical problems on the Tourmalet and is absolutley punished for it by Andy. For all his glory and victories I get the feeling Contador is not that well liked in the peleton, and you can see why when he comes up with disgraceful actions like this. It is not suprising he chooses to associate with disgarced former blood dopers such as Alexander Vinokourov. Contador claims he did not see the issue and was unaware that Schleck had been caught up behind. What a load of crap! Surely he would have got a golden view of Schleck's chain problems as he rode past him after Schleck had dropped him fair and square with a blistering attack. Contador may go on to win this Tour easily with a big performance in the last two mountain stages and the time trial. But if the margin is 40 seconds or less to Schleck at the finish it will go down as a Tour win just as tainted as Floyd Llandis effort in 2006.

The one shining light on the day was the heroic performance of French national champion Thomas Voeckler, who rode solo over the final 30km to record the second stage win of his career in wonderful fashion. Voeckler had been part of the days break but attacked the lead group on the final climb up the Port de Balès. He managed to hold his lead on the descent into Bagneres-de-Luchon and had more than enough time to enjoy the final kilometre to the finish line where upon he kissed his national jersey in triumph. In the end Voeckler had 1:20 to spare over the only other two survivors from the breakawy, with Alessandro Ballan just nudging out Aitor Perez in the race for second. Voeckler is a plucky cyclist and the kind of eager opportunist that any team would love to have in their ranks. It was great to see him get yet another reward in a race that has already delivered so much to him over his career (he wore the yellow jersey for almost 2 weeks in 2004).

Again there was no change in the points classification with Alessandro Pettachi continuing to hold onto his green jersey by a slender 2 points. The big mover in the King of the Mountains classification was Thomas Voeckler, who garnered the double point bonus for winning the final HC climb of the day and moved up to third in the race for the Polka Dot Jersey. He trails current wearer Anthony Charteau by 33 points, and with two cat-1 and two HC climbs on tonight's stage I reckon he will be looking for the break again in an attempt to take the jersey from his teammate and countrymen. Despite his mechanical problems Andy Schleck increased his lead in the White Jersey competition for best young rider to almost 5 minutes over Robert Gessink.

Yellow Jersey - Alberto Contador (Dog)
Green Jersey - Alessandro Pettachi
Polka Dot Jersey - Anthony Charteau
White Jersey - Andy Schleck

Tonight's Stage - The Queen of stages! The Grand Daddy of them all! The Tour's high point! A 196km ball burster that passes over the Col de Peyresoude (cat 1), the Col d'Aspin (cat 1), the Col du Tormalet (HC - topping out at over 2115 metres!) and finally the Col d'Aubisque (HC). Unfortunatley the final climb is over 60km to finish so we are not likely to see too many fireworks from the big guns - you wouldn't think. A breakaway may be the way to glory then, and I am going to go for the ultimate fairytale story and tip Lance Armstrong to get into the days break and notch up the final Tour de France stage win of his career! C'mon Lance! Have a crack son!!!!