Voeckler Wins Another, Evans Cracks Again in Tour de France Stage 16

Thomas Voeckler of Europcar soloed to his second win of the 2012 Tour de France in the mountainous Stage 16, while 2011 winner Cadel Evans wilted in the heat on the harsh climbs.

Voeckler, who considered abandoning the Tour in the first week because of knee tendonitis, stuck it out to win Stage Ten and now Stage 16. The French rider also took the lead in the King of the Mountains classification.

“I can’t really figure out what I’ve done,” Voeckler told Cyclingnews.com. “It’s the kind of thing I watched on television as a kid, and today it was me who did it.

“For me I had four races in my head today, each climb was a separate race. I know every meter of the climbs from training here in this region. There were 197 kilometers of racing here and I knew all 197 kilometers by heart.”

Voeckler was part of a huge 38-rider breakaway which escaped 20 kilometers into the 197-km stage. This group stayed together over the first climb, the Hors Categorie Col d’Aubisque, but disintegrated on the next HC climb, the infamous Col du Tourmalet.

Bradley Wiggins defended his yellow jersey against attacks from Vincenzo Nibali on the final of four tough ascents. Nibali’s accelerations were too much for everyone except Wiggins and his teammate Chris Froome.

Nibali tried to take second place from Froome, but Wiggins and Froome worked together to keep the Liquigas team leader in check. The top three riders in General Classification finally crossed the finish line as a group.

Garmin-Sharp’s Dan Martin lifted the pace up the Tourmalet, and dropped Voeckler, only Laurens ten Damn and KOM leader Fredrik Kessiakoff could hang on. Voeckler fought back, with George Hincapie (in his 17th Tour) Bryce Feillu, and Chris Anker Sorenson.

Eventually 14 riders reformed into a lead group. After a few kilometers to catch their breaths, Voeckler, martin, and Feillu attacked again. Martin dropped eventually, leaving Feillu and Voeckler. This pair led the field onto the third climb of the day, the cat 1 Col d’Aspin.

It was on this climb that Cadel Evans first cracked. According to teammate George Hincapie, the BMC teal leader had stomach ailments, and the 92-dergree heat along with the ill health and the fast pace were too much for the defending champion. Hincapie dropped back along with other BMC riders to pace Evans back up to the peloton.

In a generous gesture, Evans told Best Young Rider Tejay Van Garderen to go on ahead. Van Garderen had abandoned his own chase for GC advancement to help Evans when he cracked in stage 11; this time the young American was turned loose to race.

Voeckler attacked Feillu two km into the day’s final climb, the Cat 1 Col de Peyresourde, and immediately dropped the FDJ-Big Mat rider. Voeckler finished the climb alone, taking maximum King of the Mountain points, and streaked down the fast descent into Bagnères-de-Luchon to take the stage win.

Back on the climb, the GC battle continued, as Liquigas riders Ivan Basso and Vincenzo Nibali moved to the front and raised the pace. Wiggins had Chris Froome and Ritchie Porte with him, and most of the GC top ten behind him. The accelerations of Basso and then Nibali cracked everyone except Froome and Wiggins.

When Nibali attacked a second time, even Froome could not sustain the pace, and Wiggins had to lead the pursuit in his deliberate, grinding style. Nibali pushed on all the way to the summit, but Wiggins wouldn’t give up an inch.

On the descent and even on the final running to the finish line, Wiggins remained glued to Nibali, unwilling to give up even one second of his lead. Froome stayed right with this pair; the top three GC riders were so perfectly matched, none could gain anything.

Evans cracked again on Peyresourde; when he finally crossed the line he had lost another five minutes to race leader Bradley Wiggins. 2012 was just not his Tour. As well as he rode in the events leading up to it, his body just didn’t cooperate in the race that really mattered.

Stage 16 stacked four truly brutal climbs, two Hors Categorie and two Cat 1s, for 47.1 km of steep uphill riding, finishing with a fast fifteen-km descent to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Stage 17 raises that one climb plus a mountaintop finish, climbing the Peyresourdes again and going right past Stage 16’s finish to climb to Peyragudes.

Expect to see Liquigas try again; in fact, all of the top ten will probably try to put some time into the rider ahead, to move up in GC on this last mountain stage. Vincenzo Nibali is only 18 seconds out of second place, a margin which is quite recoverable. Froome was in trouble briefly on Peyresourde; if Nibali can launch a series of attacks like that on Peyragudes he might make it to the line with a lead.

Also, Thomas Voeckler leads Astana’s Fredrik Kessiakoff by only four points in the King of the Mountains classification. These two will battle it out all the way until the finish.

Lastly, BMC’s Tejay Van Garderen might finally be allowed to race for himself—for the team, in fact, as Evans is no longer the leader; Van Garderen has 11 seconds on Evans, and if the defending winner is off form again, BMC might ride to support van Garderen’s quest for a better overall finish. The Best Young Rider leader is an excellent time trailer, and could move into the top five with a good ride.

Tour de France Stage 16
	rider	team	time
1	Thomas Voeckler	Europcar	5:35:02
2	Chris Anker Sörensen	Saxo-Tinkoff Banks	0:01:40
3	Gorka Izaguirre	Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:03:22
4	Alexandr Vinokourov	Astana
5	Brice Feillu	Saur-Sojasun	0:03:58
6	Jens Voigt	RadioShack-Nissan	0:04:18
7	Daniel Martin	Garmin-Sharp	0:06:08
8	Simone Stortoni	Lampre-ISD
9	Giampaolo Caruso	Katusha
10	Laurens Ten Dam	Rabobank	0:06:11
General Classification after Stage 16
	rider	team	time
1	Bradley Wiggins	Sky	74:15:32
2	Christopher Froome	Sky	0:02:05
3	Vincenzo Nibali	Liquigas-Cannondale	0:02:23
4	Jurgen Van Den Broeck	Lotto Belisol	0:05:46
5	Haimar Zubeldia	RadioShack-Nissan	0:07:13
6	Tejay Van Garderen	BMC	0:07:55
7	Cadel Evans	BMC	0:08:06
8	Janez Brajkovic	Astana	0:09:09
9	Pierre Rolland	Europcar	0:10:10
10	Thibaut Pinot	FDJ-Big Mat	0:11:43