Helmets off to the best sprinter in the world.

Feeling a wee bit tired from the night before Sunday morning was spent enjoying the tour horizontally from my parents couch. Early in the tour and the excitement is high. The tour began Saturday with a 7.2km individual time trial where Fabia Cancellara destroyed his competitors with a time of 8 minutes and 50s. It was a great start to the two week race.

Stage 2 was not to be out done as there were several crashes one of which involved a spectator and put sprinter Mark Cavendish out of contention for a second stage victory. He needed a bike change and was unable to get any support from his team mates that were in the heart of the peloton.

Unfortunately Cavendish’s team mates were a little unorganized and were not around to help their fallen sprinter back to the from of the pack. Then more devastation for the Englishmen as race officials usually look the other way when a rider, that is in contention to win, falls late in the stage and uses his team car to draft his way back to the pack. But the judge in the race stated that he was not to use this method as the peloton was already working on a fishing line pace.

The Aussie sprinter, Robbie McEwen, proved why he is considered the best sprinter in the world. McEwen fell approximately 20km from the finish and injured his wrist, elbow, and knee. Many would have stooped or at least set a pace just to get back with the pack and complete the stage too avoid further injury. But McEwen’s teammates were well organized and stopped and waited for their fallen sprinter. Once back inline with his teammates they helped pull McEwen back and was going to let his partners efforts be lost.

After 100m or so Robbie said that the adrenaline began to flow again and he was able to fall back to his regular pace. The commentators stated that the pack would have to slow down a great deal or have a crash if McEwen was going to make it back to the peloton in time to even have a chance to sprint with the others. With a hard strong pace for 15km he made it to the back of the pack. Over the next 4km Robbie made his way through to the front of the peloton.
Now along side the other sprinters the last 300m McEwen exploded into one of the most amazing come back sprints of all time. It was truly amazing and no one could believe that he could come back to the pack let alone take first. Truly fun to watch.

My two top riders that I want to see do well are doing just that. My German team, Gerolsteiner, is sitting 10th in the standings after two stages and young German rider, Markus Fothen, is 15th overall and 31st in points on his debut. Great numbers early on.

Sitting it 4th overall is team Caisse d'Epargne. Oscar Pereiro finished 2nd to Landis last year and wants to complete his best performance to help his fellow team mate -and second rider that I want to do well- Alejandro Valverde 33rd in points.

All in all going very well stage three starts this morning and is a 236km stage with a max elevation of 140m or about 440ft. A day set to maintain speed and there should be no real big moves other then a few sprinters that will break away from the pack at different times looking to set a quicker pace and win the king of the mountain jersey.

Always exciting as we move to the dreaded mountains where the true grits and glory come out and where the attacking begins.