TOUR DE FRANCE

I said in my blog on the Paris-Roubaix classic (11/4/10) that this year's third stage of the Tour de France on 6 July would be one to watch, since many of the favourites would be unfamiliar with the brutal cobblestones they would have to negotiate in the closing stages of a long day in the saddle.

That prediction turned out to be correct. For Frank Schleck, one of Saxo Bank's two captains and winner of the 10-day warm-up Tour de Suisse, the stage was terminal, since he crashed on the key pave section and broke his collarbone in three places. It was also a setback for Lance Armstrong, who punctured on the same section, possibly the first piece of really bad luck that the 39-year old has ever had at the Tour. On the other hand, pre-race favourite Alberto Contador came out of it quite well, coming home in the second group, despite being a small climber and breaking a spoke on his front wheel.

However, the real winner was Frank Schleck's younger brother and co-captain Andy. After a disappointing opening time trial in Rotterdam, where he lost nearly a minute in just under 9km, Saxo Bank's tactical plan for the first week had to work to perfection. It did. Fabian Cancellara took the yellow jersey on the opening day by blasting the prologue in 10 minutes flat. Then this year's dominant cobblestone rider led his teammate at full gas onto the pave sections, Schleck's job being to hang onto his wheel and hope for the best. By the end of the day, Schleck was ahead of all his main rivals with the exception of world champion Cadel Evans. But when Evans spectacularly cracked on the Col de la Madeleine on the second Alpine stage while wearing the yellow jersey, Andy Schleck took over.

The key battle is now between Schleck and Contador, currently 31 seconds behind. They have each beaten the other by ten seconds on uphill stages, so it will all come down to four mountain stages in the Pyrenees this weekend and early next week. Contador is undoubtedly the better time-trialler, so Schleck will need to be further ahead, at least a minute more and probably two, before the 52km time trial on the penultimate stage next Saturday. So those mountain stages could be fireworks.

We also shouldn't rule out good time triallers like Denis Menchov, despite his already being nearly three minutes down (others are further back). This year's Tour has been held under incredibly hot weather, which is brutally debilitating over the course of three weeks; and it only takes one bad day to ruin a rider's chances. Evans lost 8 minutes on stage 9; and Armstrong was forced to concede an eye-popping 12 minutes on the previous stage to Morzine-Avoriaz. The Tour is not over by any means.

Walter Blotscher