CyclingRevealed's First Impressions '05
Stage 16: Mourenx – Pau, 180.5 km
The Spirit of Champions
With the intense focus on the riders at the top of the GC standings it is easy to overlook superlative performances by other riders in the peloton. It should be remembered that everyone getting a place on a TdF team belongs to the world's most elite group of athletes. We become most familiar with the Armstrong's, Basso's and Ullrich's of the race. Others dedicate themselves to supporting their team leaders, others specialize in climbing or sprinting and others, for whatever their reasons are not on their game, and just ride to survive.
Possibly the most exciting group are those who constantly attack and are typically to be found in those ‘race-long' breaks that always seemed to get pulled back just before the finish. This year Oscar Pereiro (Phonak) has probably been the most aggressive rider throughout the Tour. Two days ago he was away all day and finally came second to George Hincapie (Discovery) on the leg breaking Queen stage to Pla d'Adet.
Today the real action started when Cadel Evans (Davitamon.Lotto) attacked his break companions on the final HC climb of this Tour, the Col d'Aubisque. His plan had been to gain significant time and move sharply up the GC table.
Over the top of the Col , Evans was joined by Pereiro, Xabier Zandio (Illes Balears) and Eddy Mazzoleni (Lampre). Gaining over six minutes on the main peloton Evans was now challenging for third place on GC. Pereiro and Mazzoleni were also looking at significant GC improvements. It may not have been panic (as there were still over 60kms to the finish), but the situation ignited a serious chase behind with T-Mobile, Rabobank and Credit Agricole leading the charge. On the line they closed to about three and one half minutes. Pereiro took a richly deserved win and Evans moved up from 11 th to 7 th on GC (not bad for a TdF rookie). None of the four will compete for this year's overall but today they had the “Spirit of Champions”.
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