Posted on 07/05/2006 10:28:39 PM PDT by nutmeg
Stage 5: Beauvais to Caen 225km
Course: The fourth long stage in a row, this one (225km) starts on the open, windswept roads of Picardy, tackles a series of short climbs across the Seine Valley, and concludes with more undulations across Normandy. It's likely that only seconds will separate the race leaders on GC going into this stage, and the yellow jersey could change hands with time bonuses at the intermediate sprints, the last of which is at Pont l'Evêque with 50km to go. A fast, tricky run-in to sprawling Caen, population 113,000, will make it hard for a sprinter's lead-out train to succeed, and perhaps favor a late, solo attack.
History: There have been 33 stage finishes at Caen in the past 100 years. The last visit here was in 1978 when the great Dutch squad TI-Raleigh won a marathon 153km team time trial, but by just seven seconds over the Belgian C&A team of that year's final winner Lucien Van Impe. The last road stage to end here was in 1976, when Italian Giovanni Battaglin took a solo flyer to win by 10 seconds ahead of a 90-strong pack led in by the day's top sprinters, Pierino Gavazzi of Italy, Jan Raas of the Netherlands and Freddy Maertens of Belgium.
Favorites: With both the yellow and green jerseys in play, the sprinters should again be going for time bonuses at the three intermediate sprints and the finish. The flat, wide finish straightaway favors Boonen over McEwen, while wild cards like Austrian Bernhard Eisel and Italian Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) might play a role.
Graphics by CyclingNews.com
Agreed. It's a very "Be here now" experience. And when you're doing it on a beautiful country road there's nothing like it.
If you are not "of a certain age," as they say, you may not be aware of one of the romantic movies of all time. Un Homme et une femme, (A Man and a Woman), was largely filmed in Deauville. You might find it a very nostalgic way to extend the pleasure of your visit. At the first least, you get the exquisit pleasure of an hour and a half of the companionship of Anouk Amie, a woman of both style and beauty who killed all us 60s guys who were not on acid.
OK, enough colour, now back to the Tour DAY France! LOL!! (w/ apologies to LK44-40 :) : Tu es fou!
There used to be a patchwork jersey, part yellow, part green, part polka dotted. A formula was used and this jersey was handed out to the rider who was rated the best according to this formula. Specifically, a rider would have to be performing well in all three categories in order to get it.
They stopped handing it out years ago, but it is an interesting competition. Only Eddy Merckx has won all three jerseys in the same year, in 1969. That was the one year in the tour when one man truly dominated the rest of the field.
I'm not sure how the formula worked so I can't say who would have it right now, but if I had to guess, I would say Matthias Kessler of T-Mobile, who is 11th in GC, 22nd in sprint points, and 12th in mountain points.
In a year like this, if a GC contender who is a good climber can stay in the top 15-20 in the green jersey competition during the flat stages, and then goes on a tear and wins several of the big mountain stages (especially the ones that finish on a climb where KOTM points are double), anything can happen. The points are weighted so that the winner of a flat stage earns more, but still.
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