Monday's Rouge Report

Call it what you like, "B" is for Brutal, or Belittling, or the Bast%*d, maybe the Beast, or just Big B, or perhaps plain - the Balès, the climb up today's Port de Balès is one of the truly great ascents in the Pyrenees.

Amazingly it was only included for the first time as recently as 2007. I was fortunate and happy to have climbed it that same summer, two months after the Tour had suffered over it. The road was still graffiti'd in hopes and heroes. Half way up the climb Didi the Devil's pitchforks poked at our tires just as the road kicked up and the real devil - the first of several kilometers at 10-plus percent - bit at your legs like a feral dog.

Today the Port de Balès was only beautiful if you were named Thomas and you were racing away from the field in your National Tricolor (or you were exhuberant club rider and busting your friends in the final couple K's - the memory is still sweet!) for the rest of the peloton the Port de Balès is over an hour of suffering with the boys at the back of the bus and avoiding the hawking voiture balai.

Chapeau to former rouge contender Anthony Roux, you caught an express bus and made up 15 minutes over the Port de Balès, building a buffer for the next two killer stages and left the temporary honor of Lanterne Rouge to the HTC-Columbia rider from Germany Bert Grabsch. Also making a return to the rouge race is Stage 10 laster Adriano Malori (Lampre-Farnese Vini).

Rest up guys, tomorrow's stage is why Henri Desgrange invented to the voiture balai - broom wagon. The voiture's siren will sing, but resist, the rest day is only 5 Cols and 199.5 kms in the distance - just be delighted you aren't a century earlier, the day would be 326km long, 0ver 14 hours in the saddle.

Backing up a full half hour for today's Rouge Report - they will all play a roll in the next two days:

157	David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions	2:57:19
158	Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team Saxo Bank	2:58:21
159	Nicki Sörensen (Den) Team Saxo Bank	2:58:39
160	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:59:16
161	Brett Lancaster (Aus) Cervelo Test Team	2:59:19
162	Iban Mayoz Echeverria (Spa) Footon-Servetto	2:59:24
163	Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	2:59:45
164	Alan Perez Lezaun (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi	3:00:54
165	Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo	3:01:12
166	Jeremy Hunt (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	3:01:58
167	Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha	3:04:23
168	Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:05:13
169	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	3:10:38
170	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	3:14:48
171	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	3:14:59
172	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	3:16:17
173	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:25:06
174	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	3:27:07

Flying the Tricolor - A Centenary to Celebrate

All eyes were focused three kilometers down the north slope of the Porte de Balès, the fight for yellow was in full flight, attacks, counter-attacks, but over the summit and down the southern slope by a couple of minutes flew a diminutive Frenchman clad in the vibrant Tricolor, the colors of the champion nationals of his home country. Since 2004 we have come to love him for his affable smile and genuine verve for the sport, Thomas Voeckler was racing pell-mell for the lovely and historic spa-town of Luchon. Voeckler, of the French team Bbox Bouygues Telecom, scored not only a victory into Bagneres-de-Luchon for himself, but more importantly the 5th of this Tour for France, in Le Tour de France. In dropping the hammer and escaping his breakaway companions on the upper 10% reaches of the Porte de Balès, he help insure this was a day of double celebration. The victory marked the most successful Tour de France in a quarter century and Happy Centenary for Le Tour de Pyrenese.

For winner only mentality Americans there will be the inevitable question: So what's the big deal? Isn't this a race for the yellow jersey? And no Frenchman even cracks the top 10; in fact, John Gadret riding for AG2R La Mondiale trails in 15th at 14m 24s off the lead - that's about as close as the French will get to winning their race this year.

The big deal is, this is their race. Le Tour IS a French race. Despite the occasional starts on foreign soil it is called the Grand Boucle because it annually swings its way around the whole of France. Those scenes you see the helicopters beaming around the planet in HD - that's France. Those castles and chateaus Paul Sherwin warbles on about - they're French. This great race was born 106 years ago in France and despite its recent globalization it is an expression of French sport, culture, economics, politics and passion. More importantly it must remain French - Le Tour de France - and to do that it needs the French to love it, like they can only do if they feel a part, yes, that means winning.

The story of the birth of Le Tour de France is well known to most - a French newspaper's (L'Auto) marketing ploy to increase circulation, insure survival and most importantly perhaps, eliminate the competition (L'Velo), whose publisher had opposing political views. Buried on the backpages of this new event was the patriotic passions of the founder, self-appointed director, and often chief chronicler Henri Desgrange. Desgrange loved France with obsession, consequently his race was and is a representation of all he believe France and the French people should aspire to be.

Over the decades, through, and because of, political strife, wars, economic good times and bad, shifts in sporting attitudes, and the coming of new medias, the race that first circled the rutted roads of the French countryside has been influenced by, and influenced, French life. I won't lead you down the long history of Le Tour, if you are interested read the excellent, LE TOUR, by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, but suffice to say for the Tour to remain Le Tour de France needs a French cycling resurgence. There will never be enough American or British or Australian or Kazakh cycling fans to create a living gauntlet up L'Alpe d'Huez, or engulf the Tourmalet like they will Tuesday and Thursday, or set a table of fromage, vin and baguette roadside in a small village in the middle of Provence and wait three hours for its passing - forget your own nationalistic pride for two seconds and you realize part of what you love about this race is it is French. And it is a more than a bicycle race, it is a human drama in an amphitheater of life, that no other country could have invented and no other country has ever equaled.

A few months before that first climb to the Pyrenean summits, that crazy idea of making cyclists on bicycles that invented the word, ascend over mere muddy goat tracks, to which the race officials were shouted at "assassins!" American President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in Paris, a speech entitled "The Man in the Arena". A speech that wasn't of the pen, but of the heart of Henri Desgrange and at the heart of his beloved Le Tour de France. President Roosevelt spoke,

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Today I smiled with joy for daring Frenchman Thomas Voeckler and
was proud to love my very French Tour de France.

Photo: AP

Rouge Report: The ER fills up

Dawn broke on the Pyrenees to shine on a peloton bruised, battered, broken and beat. In the memories of many this has been a Tour shattered with the kind of suffering we haven't seen in years.

Yesterday Juliet Macur, for the NY Times wrote,

"As of Friday afternoon, 22 riders, including Farrar and two of his Garmin-Transitions teammates, have dropped out of the three-week race, which began on July 3 and ends on July 25, in Paris. Christian Vande Velde, the team leader, crashed in Stage 2, then pulled out with broken ribs. Robbie Hunter, a sprinter, quit after breaking his elbow in Stage 10.

Only six of the team’s nine Tour riders remain. And three of those — who rank 148th or lower in the standings now — are competing with injuries.

At their team hotel on Thursday night, the dinner table looked like a hospital waiting room. Hunter had his arm in a sling. David Zabriskie, the five-time United States time trial national champion, had tape around his injured left knee. Julian Dean, a sprinter, moved gingerly because of a deep bruise on his back. David Millar, one of the squad’s veterans, wore a protective girdle, from a Stage 2 crash"

After today's first-of-four forays into the upper atmosphere of the Geants du Pyrenees the peloton needs extra seats in the autobus - nearly 40% of the riders finished 37 minutes back of stage winner Christophe Reblon atop Ax-3 Domaines. Even Phil Liggett commented early on in the stage, while the riders were still on the slopes of the 2,001 meter HC monster of the Port de Pailhères, "we could see another 20 of these go before we leave the Pyrenees."

Well if that many more don't survive through to see Paris we will definitely "celebrate" one of the most destructive Tours in recent memory; as is we may have more bodies broken arriving on the Champs than ever before. But after day one in the Pyrenees, looking at the contenders clustered in the last 15 minutes of the GC we have familiar bedfellows, and Germans now holding three of the last six spots. If current Lanterne Rouge Anthony Roux should succumb to the climbs and one of these three inherit the red lamp then 75 years of abstinence would be broken for Germany. Not since Willi Kutschbach trailed in 7h 40m 39s, in 46th place, in 1935 (the final year founding Director Henri Desgrange would complete his beloved Tour) - has a German finished last in Paris:

169	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	2:45:10
170	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:45:28
171	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	2:49:20
172	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	2:50:49
173	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:59:38
174	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	3:01:39
175	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	3:02:36

Friday's Rouge Report

Anyone seriously calculating the Laterne Rouge race had to take note of today's Stage 12, hidden in the lumpy hills of the southern Massif Central - where more than one rider has succumbed to the heat and torturous terrain.

And today a toll was taken - my ace in the hole is out, gone, headed for a little R&R, DNF'd - Tyler Farrar.

It was a case of climbing, as it usually is for Lanterne Rouge contenders, this time Tyler added a fractured wrist from Stage 2 to his challenge. Tyler slipped off the back and couldn't even hang on fellow drifter Lars Boom (of Rabobank), according to Garmin director Matt White. So, I'll admit to being a bit depressed about my day with the Tour - Tyler out and Andy Schleck missing Contador's wheel on the attack up the wicked "petit" Montée Laurent Jalabert.

Tyler told reporters after the race, "I am devastated to leave the Tour and my teammates. You never want to leave any race, but especially the Tour. It's the event we work for all year. I've been suffering since my crash on stage two and today the pain was just too much." Also going on early summer holiday with Farrar was Samuel Dumoulin, one of the bright French hopes for Rouge - dang! Sadly with the Pyrenees looming more devastation awaits.

So - with two great Lanterne Rouge contenders out below is what the race looks like heading to Revel and into the weekend, where the Tour de Soufffrance for our back-of-the-bus boys begins in full dread come Sunday as they face an HC and Cat 1 shaped tail-end of a mountainous demon. Don't look up - Monday it gets worse and Tuesday may the best man survive to enjoy the rest day in Pau. Good luck guys and may the grand sufferer finish last.

167	Stéphane Auge (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	1:59:32
168	Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa) Astana	2:02:03
169	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:02:49
170	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	2:04:02
171	Francesco Reda (Ita) Quick Step	2:04:20
172	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	2:06:35
173	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	2:07:51
174	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:16:59
175	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	2:19:00
176	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:19:49

Today's Rouge Report

Whether it was the phone call Adriano got from his boyhood pals reminding him that their beloved footballers had exited the World Cup in utter disgrace or it was the post-Bastille Day hangover of the two Frenchmen Samuel Dumoulin and new rouge Anthony Roux, a stage that should have seen the statis quo in the rouge race indeed saw a bit of shuffling off the back.

After Stage 11 thing shifted around a bit - but the contenders are all still there - including American Tyler Farrar, although Mark Renshaw nearly sealed Tyler's fate by taking him into the barriers in the final meters of today's sprint - instead the officials sealed Renshaw's.

168	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions	1:50:18
169	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	1:50:56
170	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	1:52:23
171	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	1:56:25
172	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	1:56:28
173	Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa) Astana	1:56:48
174	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	1:57:10
175	Francesco Reda (Ita) Quick Step	1:57:58
176	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:04:09
177	Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	2:05:18
178	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:05:51

A footnote: Bill Strickland's piece on Bicycling.com suggesting Lance pull a Lanterne - while it would be a first in many categories, and definitely turn up the international on light in the lantern - if we are going to have an American he should earn it in the grand tradition of rouge - go Tyler Farrar!

PS - all my Rouge Reports will be tag as such in the Labels if you want to compare riders/postings as a group

BREAKING NEWS: Renshaw to Work For BP

Bourg-lès-Valence,FRANCE - Executed in swift and decisive action today, in a move rarely seen by Tour officials, top race official Jean-Francois Pescheux disqualified cyclist Mark Renshaw of team HTC-Columbia. He said after the race: “Renshaw was declassified immediately but we have decided to also throw him off the race." Going on to say, "We’ve only seen the pictures once, but his actions are plain for all to see. This is a bike race, not a gladiator’s arena." Later adding his talents are needed elsewhere, but refused to elaborate.

As reported immediately after the finish today in VeloNews:

Australian Mark Renshaw has been thrown out of the Tour de France for trying to headbutt rival Julian Dean during a bunch sprint finish to the end of the 11th stage, race officials said.

Renshaw, the lead-out man for stage winner Mark Cavendish, was shown by television pictures trying to headbutt the Garmin-Transitions rider from New Zealand three times in the final 400 meters of the home straight.

Cavendish then raced ahead towards eventual victory, his third this year on the race and 13th in three participations, with Renshaw then seen trying to block Dean’s sprinter, Tyler Farrar, as the American tried to come up the inside of the barriers.

Elaboration on the disqualification came only minutes later in the official release from the Queen of England Royal PR Service. It said - that Her Majesty the Queen had been requested by BP senior officials, who were reportedly taking a break from the whole "Gulf mess" to catch the run into the line by Cavendish, to summon Mr. Renshaw, an Australian, as a royal subject, to assist in their growing dilemma in the Gulf of Mexico. An unidentified BP official was quoted as saying - we're in the crapper on this one mate, we need to know if this test will work and after watching Mark bashing his way through the peloton we are certain if our well head can survive that it can stand up to any pressure from below.

“The well integrity test will last at least 6 hours and could last up to 48 hours, as soon as Mr. Renshaw arrives,” BP said on its Web site. “Although it cannot be assured, it is expected that no oil will be released to the ocean during the Renshaw test. Even if no oil is released during the test, this will not be an indication that oil and gas flow from the well bore has been permanently stopped, nor that Mr. Renshaw has not headbutted the well head to the best of his ability.”

In a brief statement to the media, Mr. Renshaw said, "I'm bummed to be out of the Tour, but as long as Aussies fly the Union Jack on our flag, I'll be there for the Queen Mother, England, and any of its global multinational corporate giants that find themselves with a sticky wicket."

In an unrelated news story, HTC-Columbia announced that it has signed an agreement for a new long-term sponsor and its team colors will now be a pronounced green and yellow.

Rouge Report: Lanterne Rouge Race Began on Col de Madeleine

At last we have a race for rouge. Adriano Malori, the young Italian riding for the Italian squad Lampre-Farnese Vini, turned squares up the Col du Madeleine yesterday to cross the line 151st in Stage 9 that included the race's first real gauntlet of ascents and the first HC climb. He rode in with more than 40 others in the autobus, nearly 35 minutes behind winner Sandy Casar and the other day's leaders.

Thanks to a break that stuck, the Italian finished Stage 10 in the main group in 181st and last in the field, trailing overall maillot jaune Andy Schleck by 2 hours, 2 minutes and 29 seconds. He's tightened the race to Frenchman Anthony Roux, who's in 180th place, by closing down two minutes today. It's time to start tracking the climbs and the ticking of the cut-off clock, we now have a race. We haven't had an Italian Lanterne Rouge since Roldolfo Massi in 1990.

Here's the contenders after Stage 10:

176	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions	1:50:18
177	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	1:55:00
178	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	1:56:25
179	Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	1:57:37
180	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:00:46
181	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:02:29