Hesjedal is Team Garmin’s last hope
By Friday night, the 2010 Tour de France had suffered the loss of 22 of the contenders who rode in the Prologue on July 3rd. As a team, U.S. based Garmin-Transition has suffered the most, with three cyclists already out of the race and three more continuing despite injuries.
The race to the final stage on July 25th in Paris is a little more than half done, but Team Garmin lost their leader and podium-finish-hopeful Christian Vande Velde, who finished the last two Tours in the top ten. Vande Velde crashed and broke two ribs in the second stage of this year’s Tour.
Robbie Hunter fractured a bone in his elbow in stage 10 and woke the next day to find that he couldn’t close his hand over the handlebar. Most recently, Tyler Farrar, who has been competing with a fracture in his wrist since the second stage, had to five in to the pain 50km from the finish line of the 12th stage, the third team member to go.
“I wanted to get to Paris more than anything,” Farrar said in a statement sent by his team. “Instead, I’ll be watching my teammates from home. That’s not where I want to be.”
The team dinner table looked like a hospital waiting room on Thursday night. Five-time time-trial champion David Zabriskie has wrapped his injured left knee. Julian Dean, Farrar’s lead-out man and now the best sprinted remaining, suffers from a deep bruise across his back. David Millar, whose race has been one to forget, is covered in industrial strapping since barely finishing the 9th stage.
"I really thought I was out of the race,” said Millar. “I was 30 minutes down with 80km to go. By the time I got to the finish, I didn’t know if I’d made the time cut — all I knew was that I’d finished. And at the Tour, it’s about finishing."
Millar, who at his peak was considered one of best competing cyclists, still hasn’t given up despite rib injuries, fever and influenza. His injuries have been developing since he suffered four crashed in the second stage alone, on a day he called one of his worst days ever on a bike.
“I only got through the first 120K because I kept thinking I was going to stop,” Millar, who is British, said. “But the crowd was fantastic. They didn’t want me to abandon. So I didn’t.”
Canadian Ryder Hesjedal is the remaining contender for general classification. He was the highest-place rider to take park in the breakaway in stage 12, the most difficult stage so far. Hesjedal lost time on the final climb, but has no regrets about the gamble.
“I’d rather race than just sit and follow,” said Hesjedal. “When those guys came by on the [final] climb it wasn’t even that hard, after the amount of effort I did today, and I only lost 50 seconds or so. People will probably say it was stupid, but I’m here to race, and I’d rather be out front. It was good guys at the end there - to make the selection with Vino and Klöden was good.”
Hesjedal is comfortable having to assume the role as the new leader of Team Garmin. When he crossed the finish line of the twelfth stage, he hadn’t known that Farrar had abandoned, but it can only serve to put more responsibility on the Canadian’s leadership.
"I think I showed today I can lead the team,” he said. “That was probably one of the hardest days so far, but I’m not scared to go hard and leave it out on the road. We’ve got the hardest days coming up, and we’ll see what today did to me, but I’d rather take the chance, and maybe come off with something big, than just follow. This Tour is all about testing the limits for me."
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