The Tour and The Pyrenees
The final week of the 2010 Tour de France approaches and brings with it four more mountain stages, including the Pyrenees, a historic component of the Tour. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the first climb of the Col du Tourmalet, the summit of which was first taken by French cyclist Octave Lapize in 1910 – though he was hardly happy about it.
“What's going on is that you are criminals! Do you hear?” said Lapize at the summit. “Tell Desgrange from me: you cannot ask human beings to do a thing like this!”
Overall runner-up Alberto Contador shortened the gap between him and race leader Andy Schleck in Stage 12, and the tension is mounting for their inevitable face-off.
“I bet he's nervous and I'm of course also nervous because I still have to take time on him,” said Schleck. “I enjoy it every time that I climb the podium to receive a new yellow jersey and I'm convinced today wasn't my last time on the podium. The team did great work once again even though the riders up front were very strong. I told my team to try and control the race even though the finish didn't suit me too much.”
Contador’s performance today may speak of what’s to come, since Schleck performed poorly on the final climb and will not be getting any less exhausted. Still, Schleck is optimistic that he can gain back the time just as easily as he can lose it.
“I'm still feeling good. I prepared this Tour to be good in the Pyrenees so I will not be getting weaker. The Pyrenees will be different. Today there were still a lot of riders on the last climb. In the Pyrenees it will be a duel between Contador and me," said Schleck.
The Tour returns to the mountains in Stage 14, the route of which is making its third appearance in eight years. The last 40km nails the riders with two climbs, an out-of-category followed by a category one finish.
The fifteenth Stage includes four categories of climbs, one of which is an out-of-category, where the top contenders will try to leave some riders behind. The final 20km are downhill into Luchon, however, so any shakeup can be made up for on the stretch. 106km into the stage, the peloton will pass the memorial of Fabio Casartelli, the young Italian who died on the Porte d’Aspet descent in 1995.
The 200km Stage 16, from Luchon to Pau, is among the most difficult of the year. The route includes four famous passes of the Pyrenees, the category one passes of Peyresourde and Aspin, and the out-of-category passes of Tourmalet and Aubisque, for a total of 15,000 feet of climbing. These four peaks were also passes one hundred years ago, in the 8th edition of the Tour de France. The last stage from Luchon to Pau was in 1964, when the stage winner Federico Bahamontes took the final pass solo and arrived in Pau two full minutes ahead of a 13-man chase group.
The contenders will take a second and final rest day before the final mountain stage. Stage 17 will open with two category-one climbs before a second ascent of the Tourmalet, climbed this time from the rugged western slope for a summit finish. Ivan Basso and Lance Armstrong have won stages on the east side of the mountain before, but a Tour stage has never finished on the western side before.
The Tour de France had already crossed through the mountains, but in 2010 the stakes were raised with the eleven peaks of the Pyrenees. The race director, Henri Desgrange, was doubtful, but managed to be convinced when a colleague trekked over the slopes to demonstrate that they were climbable. They first appeared in two stages, bookending a rest down, first from Perpignan to Luchon, 289km with 4 major climbs, then from Luchon to Bayonne, 326km with 7 major climbs.
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