A reminder of the status of the Sprint points competition.
Approaching the first sprint, few points avail but enough to make a change between Thor & Petacchi. Cavendish is going to need to win the stage to have any chance of beating them, and they’d have to score almost no points for that to happen.
1. HUSHOVD Thor 95 CERVELO TEST TEAM 191 pts
2. PETACCHI Alessandro 208 LAMPRE - FARNESE 187 pts
3. CAVENDISH Mark 111 TEAM HTC - COLUMBIA 162 pts
4. ROJAS Jose Joaquin 169 CAISSE D’EPARGNE 149 pts
5. MC EWEN Robbie 75 KATUSHA TEAM 138 pts
6. HAGEN Edvald Boasson 36 SKY PRO CYCLING 132 pts
7. CONTADOR Alberto 1 ASTANA 115 pts
8. SANCHEZ Samuel 181 EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI 112 pts
9. SCHLECK Andy 11 TEAM SAXO BANK 107 pts
10. TURGOT Sébastien 158 BBOX BOUYGUES TELECOM 107 pts
13:41 - Peiper Concludes His Preview...
The HTC-Columbia team has conceded that the green jersey is probably out of reach but a few more stage wins for Cavendish are still on offer and Peiper told LeTour.fr how the team will contest the stage. “Today the tactics for us will be to use a couple of the climbers first – like Monfort and Sivtsov – to control the group. Then we’ll call on Grabsch and Martin and Rogers as late in the final as possible. And then Eisel will pilot him to the sprint.”
13:40 - Points Winners At 29.5km
The result of the intermediate sprint at the 29.5km mark is: 1. Matti Breschel (SAX) 6pts 2. Daniel Oss (LIQ) 4pts 3. Jerome Pineau (QST) 2pts
13:36 - “Cavendish Looks Good...”
We should have an ally in Lampre today that will help us control a group that goes away,” Peiper continued. “We have to see what we can do with the guys who we’ve got. Cav copes well yesterday. He got dropped early but descended cleverly to get back with the main group on the backside of the Marie-Blanque and he stayed in the bunch until the next climb and he was never in trouble after that and this is a good sign. He looks good.”
Ooops, I missed the fact that top sprint points are 35, not 30. What a burst od speed.