Key moments

Boonen Breaks Up The Traditional Transitional Formula

The Quickstep team benefited from a long chase of two escapees that was controlled by both the Lampre and Francaise des Jeux team. It was only in the final three kilometers that Tom Boonen’s boys moved forward to set up a lead-out train that delivered the green jersey to the front at exactly the right time. The winner of stage six held off all the other sprint specialists to claim his second stage victory this year and the sixth of his career. He beat his two closest rivals in the points classification – with Erik Zabel and Robert Hunter taking the minor places. It was a stage that was animated by two escapees who took off at the 52km mark: Amets Txurruka and Pierrick Fedrigo built a lead of 11’30” and worked well together until being swallowed up by the sprint squads just 1,200m from the line. Of the three transitational stages, two have ended in bunch sprints...

The 178.5km 12th stage of the 2007 Tour de France, from Montpellier to Castre, began at 12.58pm. There were 168 riders at the start. Two men abandoned during stage 11 – Calzati (A2R) and Anton (EUS) – and Zabriskie (CSC) finished outside the time limit. The itinerary included four climbs: three cat-4 ascents – the cote de Cantagel (at 27.5km), cote du Mas-Rouet (58km), col du Buis (74.5km) and the cat-2 Montee de la Jeante (130.5km). The intermediate sprints were in Herepian (81.5km) and Olargues (101km).

Escape Begins Immediately
As soon as the flag fell to signal the start, Chavanel (COF) launched an attack. He was joined at the 2km mark by seven others – Merckx (TMO), Isasi (EUS), Wegmann (GST), Garate (QSI), Grabsch (MRM), Navarro (AST) and Cardenas (BAR). The escape was caught at the 17km mark. There were several other escape attempts with Chavanel the main aggressor but the peloton was together at the first climb with Gilbert (FDJ) leading over the summit. The average speed was 43.4km/h. No escape gained any momentum after that and the bunch remained together until the 52km mark. Ongarato (MRM) crashed at 7km and abandoned the Tour soon afterwards.

Fedrigo & Txurruka Make A Move
At 52km Txurraka (EUS) and Fedrigo (BTL) rode ahead of the peloton. There was no reaction to their move and they quickly gained a good advantage. At 60km they led by 3’00” and no one bothered to try and bridge the gap until Burghardt (TMO) rolled ahead of an apathetic peloton at 65km. It was hardly a committed attack rather a mild acceleration. At the Col du Buis the advantage was 6’25” over Burghardt and 8’35” over the peloton. At the 85km mark, the leading duo reached their maximum gain: 11’35” over the peloton (6’20” over Burghardt). Liquigas then sent rider to the head of the pack to start chasing. At the 96km mark, the advantage dropped: Burghardt was at 5’50” and the peloton at 10’05”.

Closing In On The Escapees
The Liguigas team reeled in Burghardt with 65km to go. Txurruka and Fedrigo were still 6’40” ahead. The average speed for the third hour was 37.9km/h. On the approach to the Montee de la Jeante, the Predictor-Lotto team moved near the head of the peloton which was 5’15” behind the two escapees with 60km to go but Liquigas were still the ones responsible for the pace of the pack. Caisse d’Epargne moved to the front of the peloton. All the riders in the top 10 of GC were nestled just behind Karpets who led until 500m from the summit. Soler attacked for points but was matched by Dekker and Popovych who claimed third-place points ahead of De La Fuente, Dekker and Soler who reduced his deficit to Rasmussen to just nine points in the climbing classification by collected 10 points. The deficit of the peloton was five minutes at the top.

Quickstep Set Tom Up For Another Win
On the descent Lampre and FDJ joined forces at the front of the pack. With 35km to go, the deficit to the two escapees was 3’20”… it then dropped steadily: 1’45” with 20km to go, 1’00” with 10km to go. With 7km to go, Quickstep also moved to the front. Most of the sprinters teams were vying for a good position but none could made a dent on the advantage held by Quickstep. They controlled the peloton, swallowed up the two escapees 1,200m from the line, and led the charge to the finish line. It was the traditional arrangment after the ’flamme rouge’: De Jongh taking charge until 500m to go, then Steegmans until 200m and then Boonen bolts ahead to finish off the job. Zabel and Hunter finished second and third respectively, about a bike length behind but only centimeters separated them.
Rasmussen finished 47th and will be the last rider to start the time trial in Albi for stage 13 as the leader of the Tour de France.

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Tom Boonen - "It’s not a simple jersey to win..."

He’s won six stages of the Tour de France and the victory in the transitional stage to Castres helped Tom Boonen increase his advantage in the race for the green jersey. He now leads Erik Zabel by 20 points and ’Tommeke’ was full of praise for the lead-out done by his Quickstep colleagues but he accept that there’s still a little bit of luck required if he’s to win the sprinters’ prize at the end of the Tour.

“It was a very fast finish. Everybody is so motivated and yesterday I was a little bit disappointed with the stupid crash 800 meters from the finish. I woke up this morning and told myself there are two ways you can handle it: negative or positive and I tried to do things the right way. The peloton passed the last climb in a fairly good situation and it was full speed ahead to the finish line.
“It was a nice lead-out. Everybody did a good job especially considering the headwind. It wasn’t easy but as soon as Tosatto started to work, the speed went up and then ‘Stevie’ [de Jongh] went and it was the same thing… everybody in my team was so motivated after yesterday after all the hard work we did yet still not being able to get any points because of a crash. Today was a good remedy.
“You try to win all the stages that you can, this isn’t really a revenge for yesterday. If you try 10 times and you win two, then it’s pretty good.
“I can still lose the green jersey even if I have a 20 point lead over Erik Zabel. Situations like yesterday illustrate that perfectly. It’s not hard to lose control and that’s the thing about the green jersey: it’s not science, if you have bad luck it’s possible to lose it. That’s why you have to fight for every point you get because there are going to be days like yesterday and it’s possible that will happen more than once. If Zabel was in the first group yesterday, the green jersey would probably have been gone. So it’s not a simple jersey to win; you have to work very hard to get it and also be a bit lucky.”

Rasmussen – “My feelings towards the Danish federation are best kept to myself”

Before the start of the 12th stage the leader of the Tour de France was informed that he was suspended from the Danish national team for the world championships this coming September and the Olympics in 2008. Michael Rasmussen received a warning for failing to correctly fill in his Athlete Whereabouts form. The Danish rider accepts the warning and believes that’s all there is to the matter... now his focus is firmly set on the time trial of stage 13.

“It’s good to be one day closer to Paris and still in the yellow jersey. It was actually quite a relief to be on the bike in the race today, to say the least. I’m very calm and collected before the upcoming time trial and I’m confident that I can defend the jersey tomorrow.
“I do not have a problem. I received a warning from the UCI and from the Danish anti-doping agency for not updating my whereabouts information correctly and I accept that warning. There’s no more to the story. I was in Mexico for a while before the Tour but I was also racing the Giro d’Italia in May and people who follow cycling a little bit know that.
“It was not my choice to communicate anything. It’s the Danish federation that has announced it. Many riders receive warnings for missed tests or not updating their whereabouts forms correctly. There are plenty of riders in the peloton with similar warnings and nobody is announcing them; it’s not a public matter.
“I think you have to ask the Danish federation. My feelings towards that federation are best kept to myself.”
“I don’t think what’s happening is terrible for the Tour de France. There are many riders in this situation. People who have to live like professional athletes do – and have to keep two different agencies up to date with where they are for every hour of the day – will experience that it’s not that easy to keep these things correct all the time. It’s a case of knowing three months in advance where you’re going to be on an hour-by-hour basis and that’s the system that’s in place; but I’ve explained my story: I did not update my whereabouts information according to the UCI rules and I’ve received a warning for that and I accept that I’ve made a mistake. I have only received a recorded warning for that. I accept that and there’s no more to the story.”

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