Stage twelve and today would be the longest day in the saddle at 218km over a lumpy course as Le Tour heads toward Friday’s possible critical stage in the Massif Central.
Nearly 24 hours after Caleb Ewan’s second victory in
Poitiers, all talk was about Peter Sagan’s relegation from second to 85th
for that bump with Wout Van Aert in the sprint.
Many would agree it was the right decision in the interests
of rider safety with Fabio Jakobsen’s horrifying crash at the Tour of Poland
fresh in everyone’s minds.
Former green jersey champ Robbie McEwen thought relegation
was too harsh and the odd bump is all part of the argy-bargy of a sprint and
that we don’t want to go down the path of wrapping cycling in too much cotton
wool.
Flashback to stage three at the 2005 Tour de France where Robbie
himself was relegated for ‘irregular sprinting’ having ridden ‘erratically’
which he claimed, so as to get himself balanced better as fellow Aussie Stuart O'Grady
had leaned in on McEwen’s handlebars.
Unfortunately, McEwen counterbalanced using his head against O’Grady. Hmm, shades of the ‘Dipper defence’, where every bump, he swears, was an accident?
Others reckon Sagan was hard-done by as they believed the
former triple World Champion leaned in toward Van Aert to avoid a selfie-stick
protruding over the barrier. Could this be the #selfiestickgate controversy of
the 2020 Tour? Could this have been a selfie-stick plant as part of a conspiracy
to deny Sagan the green jersey?
At least there’s some photographic evidence to back this up,
so we can safely rule out 5G, Bill Gates and the Clintons in the plot.
Over to the Plat du Tour kitchen and Guillaume Brahini didn’t
hold back on the butter in his Apple tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice-cream. After
a slow start he gets my tick of approval but no ticks of approval from the Heart
Foundation with 100g of butter in the recipe.
Out on the course a break was established including Luis
Leon Sanchez, Imanol Erviti, Max Walscheid, Nils Politt, Mathieu Burgaudeau and
Kasper Asgreen who held their ground against a determined chase by peloton.
As the peloton rode through the rolling countryside Robbie,
Bridie and Mattie noted the changing of the seasons and the hay bales in the paddocks
as farmers get ready for winter.
Bridie noticed some hay bales were wrapped in plastic.
Robbie suggested that the farmers bought some cheap hay bale plastic from Le
Bunnings - which is only available in Melbourne via Le Click ‘n’ Le Collect.
Field art played a big part of today’s stage as it paid
tribute to ‘the eternal second’ Raymond Poulidor, or Poupou as he was affectionately
known as who passed away in November last year and to former French president
Jacques Chirac.
The field art tribute to Poupou in the old velodrome in his
home village of St-Leonard-de-Noblat was fitting to the great man.
Top marks to the wheel formation with the six-and-a-half-thousand-year-old
Neolithic wheel hub. I’d say it’s time to have the bearings looked at though.
No points to what looked like a hay bale BMX with drop bars.
It was either that or a road bike that’d been backed over by agricultural
machinery.
But the kicker had to be the tribute to Jacques Chirac with
an impressively large depiction of the former president. As an added bonus the
day’s stage winner also picks up a Jacques Chirac Spice Rack, valued at 200
euros. Only at Le Bunnings, that’s nice!
Former VFL player Robert 'Dipper' DiPierdomenico claimed every bump was an accident before forging a career spruiking for Dimmeys. BE THERE!!!
Dave Macka called in to the SBS studio for his regular Zoom
meeting. Er Macka, that was some poor internet connection right there but then
again it’s typical of the shit internet Aussies have to deal with every day.
This reminded the Doc in Chateau du Tete of her joke from
Italian holidays in 2013: internet access in Pompeii was better than at home in
Melbourne.
The pretend caravan of commentary has been struck by how
quite the Colombian Rigoberto Uran has been this year. Look he’s usually quiet,
but not that quite we hadn’t realised he was at this year’s Tour until now.
As the race headed toward the Sarran Correze the make-up of
the breakaway had changed somewhat after a series of attacks.
Max Schachmann, Quentin Pacher and Marc Soler were there but
Marc Hirshi had the support of Sunweb teammates Kragh Andersen and Tiesj
Benoot.
It had been looking improbable that the break would succeed
but Hirschi got out in front at 30km to go and despite a concerted chase soloed
across the line with a finger tips kiss victory salute.
What a great ride and well deserved first win at the Tour de
France at the tender age of 22 for Hirschi who had come so close in stage two
in Nice and stage 8B in Laruns.
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