16:38 - Peloton At 15km To Go...
The peloton is 4’25" behind Freire, Le Mevel, Ballan and Popovych with 15km to go... pick the winner from the leading quartet because there’s little interest from the peloton in chasing down the escape.
16:34 - 4’20" Lead Now...
With the leaders - Freire, Le Mevel, Ballan and Popovych - 15km from the finish, they appear destined to fight it out for stage honours. Thunder has just cracked in the skies above Carcassonne and it could be a stormy finish... the leading quartet are now 4’20" ahead. The Phonak team has been given the responsibility of the chasing duties. All they want to do is keep Popovych’s group within a reasonable margin. The sprinters’ squads don’t seem interested in chasing down the escapees.
Much to Robbie's chagrin, I'm sure...
More bad news for Ullrich Apparently, Jan Ullrich had been working with the Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes for longer than assumed so far. In it’s Friday edition the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung published documents from the investigation of the Spanish authorities, showing that Ullrich used doping products leading up to and during the 2005 Tour de France.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung secured a so called “road book” from the office of Fuentes in which the dosage and duration of medication for Ullrich is documented in detail. The road book shows that Ullrich took a mix of hormones, insuline, cortisone, testosterone, as well as a unit of his own prepared blood during the first week of the 2005 Tour de France.