Cycling/ Tour de France: The home riders have an inglorious record of choking on big occasions in the Tour, but yesterday, to make France's biggest sporting weekend for years complete, the stage win went to a Frenchman, Sylvain Calzati, who by happy coincidence is of Italian parentage - if, less auspiciously, he promptly declared his support for the Azzurri last night.
Never ones to turn up the chance to indulge in a touch of the Murray Walkers, the French television commentators hailed the 27-year-old's lone attack as part of le weekend de gloire some four hours before the main event in Germany was due to kick off. But it was certainly Calzati's jour de gloire and it was hard won.
Calzati rides for the Ag2R team, which lost their leader, Francisco Mancebo, just before the start as part of the Operation Puerto clear-out, and he was part of the six-rider escape that dominated this run westward to the Atlantic seaboard and to the home port of the English solo yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur. He decided to set sail singlehanded with 30.4km to go, in spite of a contrary wind.
Behind, the peloton huddled in the breeze and Calzati's erstwhile companions were unable to get on terms. He cut a tiny figure on the wide Route Nationale road that took the race over the River Scorff and into the finish; by the end he had sufficient time to take a photo of his wife Aurelia and daughter, Emma, from his pocket and wave them at the cameras.
A home win was appropriate in another sense in a stage that positively revelled in the heritage of France's cycling heartland. The start flag was dropped at the museum devoted to the first rider to win the Tour three times, Louison Bobet, in his home village of St-Meen-le-Grand, while the route took in part of the course used for the region's biggest race, the Grand Prix Ouest-France.
After T-Mobile's strong showing on Saturday, the peloton decided to see whether the Germans would defend Serhiy Gontchar's yellow jersey; among the day's five-rider escape was the rider lying 10th overall, David Zabriskie of CSC, along with a local boy, Patrice Halgand, one of the many local sons who race in the illustrious shadow of Breton Tour greats such as Bernard Hinault and, of course, Bobet.
Halgand, Zabriskie, Mario Aerts of Belgium and Calzati took with them the only Finn in the race, Kjell Carlstrom, but the move was infiltrated by T-Mobile's Matthias Kessler, winner last Tuesday at Valkenburg. It was a tactical masterstroke; the onus for leading the chase fell on Floyd Landis, the best-placed overall of the favourites after Saturday's time-trial. They could not afford to risk letting Kessler or Zabriskie gain 10 or 12 minutes and had no choice but to lead the pursuit.
With Gontchar in yellow and holding a tactical stranglehold, T-Mobile might seem to have got over the disgrace of their team leader Jan Ullrich, but that may end today when the magazine Der Spiegel is to publish sections from the police report into Operation Puerto that allegedly incriminated the 1997 Tour winner. The documents, according to Der Spiegel, include a bill for "Jan" who appears to have paid £2,060 for substances codenamed "Vino, Nino, Ignacio and PCH", believed possibly to refer to drugs.
Taped telephone calls between the doctor at the centre of the investigation, Eufemiano Fuentes, and Ullrich's confidant Rudy Pevenage - also banned from the Tour and sacked by T-Mobile yesterday - apparently refer to a "third person". On May 18th, the day Ullrich won a stage of the Tour of Italy, Pevenage says to Fuentes "the third person won". On May 20th, he tells Fuentes he has "spoken to the third person, who would like more, even if it's only half".
Ullrich denies having ever taken drugs.
- Guardian Service
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