Making the Difference

Stage 3: Ajeccio - Calvi

Today's stage marked the last day on the island of Corsica. It was another undulating stage with some tough climbs and tricky descents. The stage profile looked very similar to that of yesterday's stage, and it looked like the day would follow a similar pattern. And indeed it did. 

A breakaway of five riders led for most of the stage, but was reeled in on the final climb of the day. On the descent towards the finish the sprinters' teams took control of the peloton and looked to postion their sprinters for a stage win. Cannondale was there supporting Peter Sagan, who had survived another tough day for sprinters, and Orica Greenedge moved to the front in support of Simon Gerrans. As expected, Kittel, Cavendish and Greipel had been dropped on the earlier climbs and weren't there to contest the sprint. Kittel's teammate, Tom Dumoulin, tried to upset the sprinters and take points away from Sagan in support of Kittel, but was caught mere moments after his attack on the peloton. In the end the stage came down to a bunch sprint, and Simon Gerrans was able to hold off the charging Peter Sagan in an very close photo finish. Gerrans stage win capped off a strong day's performance for team Orica Greenedge.

Corisca has been good to the Tour debutants. Jan Bakelants maintained his yellow jersey at the end of today's stage, after claiming it in a dramatic finish yesterday, and another tour debutant, Simon Clarke, put on a powerful display in the breakaway. The Orica Greenedge rider spent most of the day in the five man break, claiming maximum points on the first three climbs. As the breakaway appeared to be faltering at the base of the final climb, the hardest of the day, Clarke attacked and rode alone towards the summit in search of a lead in the King of the Mountains classification. However, his efforts were thwarted by the current wearer of the polka-dot jersey, Pierre Rolland, who rode away from the peloton with a teammate, reeled Clarke in, and lead the race over the summit. It was nevertheless a strong showing from the Australian rider, and contributed to the overall strong performance of his team on the day.

I want to take a moment to discuss two of the classifications, the King of the Mountains and the points classification. It is this discussion that gives this blog post its title. What we saw today from Pierre Rolland indicates that he has some interest in perhaps winning the polka-dot jersey. It seems that the other main contenders in the Tour are happy to let him attack and ride off the front of the peloton. This indicates that they must be confident in their ability to gain time on him in the high mountains or time trials. Either that, or they were confident in their ability to bring him back into the fold as a team - which has happened over the past couple of days. Either way, neither of his attacks have caused a reaction from any of the contenders for the general classification. But I digress.

This blog is entitled 'Making the Difference' because I'm interested in discussing what will make the difference between winning and losing one of these classifications. Pierre Rolland's team, Team Europcar, has been involved heavily in the last two stages. Yesterday, they tried to set Pierre Rolland up to claim the polka-dot jersey but their efforts didn't quite work and Rolland had to do most of the work himself to gain a lead in the classification. Today, a similar thing happened. Cyril Gautier was sent up front to protect Rolland's lead by taking points away from the other riders in the breakaway at the top of each climb. His efforts failed, partly because he mistimed his attacks and partly because Clarke timed his own attacks to perfection. Nevertheless, it was once again left up to Rolland to do most of the work on his own on the final climb of the day (he did have some minor assistance from a teammate, but rode away from him soon after). My point is that performing well in any classification requires input not only from one rider, but the whole team. Rolland's strategies have been good, but the execution hasn't been (apart from Rolland himself). It will be very hard to win any classification without solid support from a good team. Perhaps this is why the other teams are content to let him attack so close to the finish line.

Peter Sagan is the other rider I want to talk about. The current leader in the green jersey classification is showing what it means to make the difference between winning and losing. Sagan has placed second in the past two stages - stages that are certainly not designed to suit the pure sprinters. Furthermore, he has consistently challenged for the intermediate sprint points. His main competitors - Cavendish, Greipel and Kittel have all been dropped by the peloton on the tougher climbs and have been left far from the front of the field, completely unable to fight Sagan for points. Sagan's ability to earn points on the hilly stages, where the other sprinters fall off the pace, is what could make the difference between winning and losing the green jersey. When it comes to the flat stages, Sagan will battle with his competitors for points and stage wins, but when the hills roll around his competitors will be nowhere to be seen. This year's Tour includes five stages described as 'hilly' - those are five stages that Sagan's claim on the green jersey will go largely uncontested. Sagan is showing, as Thor Hushovd showed in 2009, that it takes more than just pure pace over the last 200 metres to win the green jersey, instead a rider must accumulate points at every opportunity.

Team Time Trial Tomorrow
I love team time trials. They're such a great display of the team aspect of cycling that is essential to any grand tour campaign. The route is a flat 25 kilometre race around Nice, with teams starting in reverse order of position in the teams classification. This means that Team Radioshack-Leopard will be heading off last from the starting block, giving them a chance to assess their competition.

However, with only one second separating the race leader from half of the field it is likely that the team that wins tomorrow will see one of its riders claim the yellow jersey. I doubt that that team will be Radioshack-Leopard. Although they have a strong team, they lack the time trial potential of teams like BMC, Sky and Garmin-Sharp.

With Tony Martin struggling after a crash on the first day, the ordinarily strong Omega-Pharma Quickstep will probably struggle to contend with the likes of Sky and BMC. BMC's largely uneventful Tour so far may very well play into their favour, with both Cadel Evans and Tejay van Garderen in good shape heading into the time trial. Geraint Thomas looked to be in a lot of pain at the back of the peloton today as it turned out that he is riding with a fractured pelvis, and it looks unlikely that he'll be able to contribute very much to Team Sky's effort.

David Millar and Ryder Hesjedal of Team Garmin-Sharp will probably be looking to move the team up in the rankings from fifteenth with a strong performance over the course tomorrow. Alberto Contador has said that he feels his team is the strongest it has ever been. The time trial will certainly put that theory to the test, but I expect a strong performance from Team Saxo-Tinkoff.