AG2R’s Rinaldo Nocentini, also riding in his first Tour, finished six seconds ahead of Alberto Contador and eight seconds ahead of Lance Armstrong, capturing the yellow jersey.
While they didn’t win the stage or the GC lead, Team Astana dominated the race, setting the pace throughout the stage, breaking Fabian Cancellara and capturing three of the top five spots in General Classification.
First Mountain Stage
The Tour de France moved into the Pyrenees for its first mountain stage, 224 km from Barcelone to Andorre Arcalis.
Stage Seven was the longest stage in the 2009 Tour, and quite possibly the hardest, with a Category One climb followed by a Hors Categorie climb to the finish line, which, at 2240 meters, is third highest in Tour history.
Most experts expected Stage Seven to be the stage where the race for the yellow jersey really began.
Lance Armstrong has traditionally made a huge effort on the first mountain stage, to gain a psychological edge on the rest of the field. Tied for the lead and out of the jersey by two-tenths of a second, Armstrong could beat Fabian Cancellara by a wheel-length and take the prize.
"We were close the other day [after the team time trial], we’re close now. The key is to drop them and stay with the best guys. It’s not that complicated.”
Alberto Contador, who had reportedly scouted the course extensively, was only nineteen seconds behind the pair, and certainly had a chance to take the overall. Contador is a climber; he can attack repeatedly, to break his pursuers.
Fabian Cancellara is a very powerful rider, and while not a mountain specialist, was certainly planning to defend his yellow jersey.
Saxo Bank rider Andy Schleck is the team’s climbing specialist, was sure to make a serious attack on this stage also; he started the stage in fourteenth, 1:41 behind the leaders, and this was his chance to make up time.
Astana racing director Johann Bruyneel said he thought there was a “good possibility” that team Astana would be in yellow at the end of the day. He noted that even though Cancellara had climbed well in winning the Tour of Switzerland, “the mountains in Switzerland were definitely not as hard as Arcalis.”
Bruyneel said the team didn’t have a set strategy for who would lead attacks on the last climb.
Lance Armstrong told reporters, “I’m going to do what I have to do, for myself and for the team. We are all going to race hard, and that will naturally establish some kind of hierarchy.”
Early Breakaway Makes Good
Astana was leading the peloton, but not trying to chase down the breakaway. The team was biding its time, waiting for the serious climbing, which would separate the great from the good
Cancellara got a flat back tire coming over the crest of the climb; he switched the wheel and rejoined the peloton. As soon as he rejoined, he got a flat front tire.
The entire nine-man Astana team came to the head of the peloton and started pushing the pace a bit at the very start of the final ascent. The final seventy kilometers were all uphill, testing riders’ legs and wills; Astana was counting on their big climbers, Armstrong and Contador, to leave Cancellara behind with a series of attacks up the incline. They were not really concerned with the breakaway group, as none of them were in contention for the overall lead.
Responding to Astana, Garmin-Slipstream and Saxo Bank sent their own big guns to the head of the peloton.
With forty-five kilometers to go, the nine-man breakaway held a gap of twelve minutes. It seemed as if one of those riders would be able to beat the peloton to the top for a stage win.
The Battles Begin
Over the final 20 km, the peloton picked up the pace, to drop the slower riders. No one attacked, but the overall pace picked up. Before long, the peloton started to string out as the slower riders slowly lost ground.
Liquigas rider Aleksandr Kuschynski was the first of the lead nine to crack; he couldn’t keep the pace, and dropped off the back.
To make the climb more difficult, a strong headwind was blowing down the mountain.
Astana, at the head of the peloton, kept lifting the pace; shrinking the gap to the breakaway, but not until the final ten kilometers did the effort start to hurt the peloton.
Up at the front, Christophe Riblon launched the first attack. The group split, then reformed. Christophe Kern attacked next, then Brice Feillu. Feillu, riding his first Tour, opened up a gap over the remaining seven, which was soon the next five, as Jérôme Pineau and José Gutierrez joined Kuschynski off the back.
With six kilometers left, Fabian Cancellara cracked. The pace set by Astana was simply too much for the Swiss Time trial champion. Strong as he is, he couldn’t keep up with the climbers.
Now the question was, which Astana rider would take the lead?
Contador attacked next, trying to earn the yellow for himself. Nobody immediately responded to Contador’s attack.
Armstrong, seeing Contador away, conserved his energy and didn’t challenge.
Cadel Evans attacked again, but couldn’t shake the rest. He went yet again, trying unsuccessfully to crack his pursuit.
Rinaldo Nocentini, who started the race 3:13 behind the leaders, finished six seconds ahead of the peloton to take the yellow jersey.
Contador finished almost half a minute ahead of the rest of the peloton; he showed his climbing skill, and his strategic ability, even though he didn’t take the yellow.
'My obligation is to the team'
After the race reporters swarmed Lance Armstrong to get his summation of the race.
“When you’ve got a guy away … like I said all along my obligation is to the team. You’ve got to just stay on the wheel,” was Lance’s response.
“Schleck put in some good moves, Cadel put in some good moves; Wiggle [Bradley Wiggins] at the end there put in a good move. You’ve got to just stay on the wheel. That’s bike racing.
"It’s not a very steep climb; the speed is high. You had constant rhythm changes with changing headwinds and tailwinds. It’s maybe not my specialty, but, not bad considering. I didn’t expect a demonstration like some of the other years on the first mountain day. The wind wasn’t conducive; you saw a big group there. We’ll have plenty of days at the end of this Tour where there will only a couple of guys together.”
When asked about the Astana team, Lance replied, “The team is good. You saw there that early on the team was strong. At the end, Levi was strong, Klöden was strong, and of course Contador was strong. The team won’t be the problem.”
| Stage Seven Results |
|
| General Classification After Stage Seven | ||||||
|
| Rider | Team |
|
| Rider | Team | Time | Gap | |
| 1 | Brice Feillu | AG2R |
| 1 | Rinaldo Nocentini | AG2R | 25:44:32 | 0:00 | |
| 2 | Christophe Kern | Cofidis |
| 2 | Alberto Contador | Astana | 25:44:38 | 0:06 | |
| 3 | Johannes Fröhlinger | Milram |
| 3 | Lance Armstrong | Astana | 25:44:40 | 0:08 | |
| 4 | Rinaldo Nocentini | AG2R |
| 4 | Levi Leipheimer | Astana | 25:45:11 | 0:39 | |
| 5 | Egoi Martinez | Euskatel Euskadi |
| 5 | Bradley Wiggins | Garmin-Slipstream | 25:45:26 | 0:46 | |
| 6 | Christophe Riblon | AG2R |
| 6 | Andréas Klöden | Astana | 25:45:32 | 0:54 | |
| 7 | Jérôme Pineau | Quickstep |
| 7 | Tony Martin | Columbia-HTC | 25:44:56 | 1:00 | |
| 8 | José Gutierrez | GCE |
| 8 | Christian Vande Velde | Garmin-Slipstream | 25:44:32 | 1:24 | |
| 9 | Alberto Contador | Astana |
| 9 | Andy Schleck | Team Saxo Bank | 25:46:21 | 1:49 | |
| 10 | Cadel Evans | Silence-Lotto |
| 10 | Vincenzo Nibali | Liquigas | 25:46:26 | 1:54 | |
