In short
| Stage winner | Ahmed RASHAD |
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David VERDONCK |
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Julien GONNET |
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Wahab SAWADOGO A. |
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Wahab SAWADOGO A. |
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Martinien TEGA |
| » Jerseys' description | |
All classifications
| Stage |
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• Individual time |
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| Overall |
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• Individual time • Individual points • Best team |
Stage by stage
| 1 | Wednesday 25 October | 91 km |
| Ouagadougou > Manga | ||
| 2 | Thursday 26 October | 121 km |
| Manga > (Pô) > Tiébélé | ||
| 3 | Friday 27 October | 140 km |
| Pô > Ouagadougou | ||
| 4 | Saturday 28 October | 129 km |
| Boussé > Ouahigouya | ||
| 5 | Sunday 29 October | 150 km |
| Yako > Ziniaré | ||
| 6 | Tuesday 31 October | 136 km |
| Kokologo > Boromo | ||
| 7 | Wednesday 1 November | 83.5 km |
| Bobo Dioulasso > Banfora | ||
| 8 | Thursday 2 November | 121 km |
| Bobo Dioulasso > Bobo Dioulasso | ||
| 9 | Friday 3 November | 115 km |
| Boromo > (Sabou) > Koudougou | ||
| 10 | Saturday 4 November | 96 km |
| Linoghin > Pouytenga | ||
| 11 | Sunday 5 November | 88 km |
| Loumbila (Barrage) > Ouagadougou | ||
| Total | 1270.5 km | |
The race
Thursday 2 November 2006| stage 8 | Bobo Dioulasso > Bobo Dioulasso - 121 km |  |
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The Pharaohs awake
The twelve laps of the circuit of the Bobo-Dioulasso stage were a good opportunity for the Belgians to strongly confirm their will to defend the yellow jersey. By maintaining the different break away groups at a reasonable distance, the new bosses of the pack accomplished their mission. David Verdonck’s team mates however did leave some freedom to a group including Ahmed Rashad, decisive in the final part. The young rider from Suez, winner of the 2003 Tour of Egypt has a habit to shine during the last few days of stage races. Already second in Tiébélé, he is back on the short list of riders to watch, especially for the Koudougou stage with its final dirt track portion.
The film of the stage
Attacking Barboza
In Bobo-Dioulasso, circuit races are a tradition. Unlucky Malick Thiam who suffered a heavy crash during the final part of yesterday’s stage and had an eye injury was just too diminished to carry on for this one. For the remaining 92 riders, there was no time to lose as they attacked early. On the great merry-go-round of Bobo, one is not allowed to miss out on an opportunity. Immediately after the start a group of five men shaped up and took off including Kaboré (Bur), Kiba (Bur), Kante (Civ), Abduaziz (Mar) and Barboza (Sen), always happy to jump into an early breakaway group. After just over fifteen kilometres a sixth man joined in: Jean-Luc Delpech (Fra / Bretagne).
Slight worry for the Belgians
Despite working out rather well together the five leading men never saw their advantage on the pack reach the minute gap. Best placed overall, Barboza remained seven minutes behind Verdonck and the Belgians had no intention on letting the gap grow too much. After a serious increase of the pack’s pace, the early attackers were caught back with four laps remaining and 40 kilometres to go.
Six in the lead
A new association of six riders managed to break away shortly after that. While the Belgians didn’t seem too happy with this attempt, the quality of the front riders saw them earn a decent lead on the pack. The two former leaders of the event, Abdelati Saadoune (Mar) and Ahmed Rashad (Egy) were indeed joined by Jean-François Jegou (Fra / Bretagne), Hicham Abdul (Egy), Florent Gohier (Fra / Sarthe) and Boukaré Kagambega (Bur).
Rashad attacks with 500 m to go
With two laps to go the six front men could still enjoy a 50’’ advantage over the pack, especially thanks to the Egyptian duo that took care of leading the group. The bustle in the main field as the final lap bell went didn’t change the slightest thing. Indeed victory was to go to one of the five remaining men, Kagambega failing to follow, as the finish line got closer. Young Ahmed Rashad launched his attack with 500 metres to go and kept his rivals behind all the way to the line. The pack’s sprint was won by Julien Gonnet (Fra / Bretagne) who conquered the green jersey.
LE MAGAZINE
Tale of the impossible
The original plan was perfectly noble. Seeing the number of applications on behalf of the African countries for the twentieth edition of the Tour (Zimbabwe, Egypt, Morocco), the organisers were forced to make a selection. A cruel mathematical logic would have forced one of the weakest teams of the previous year to remain at home. The race director however couldn’t take such a brutal decision just looking at how faithful some of the countries had been to the Tour. The Tour du Faso must carry on its development of cycling in the area so the idea of a mixed team, including the same number of riders from Benin, Togo and Niger, came up as being the most reasonable. It even promised a few good surprises based on the principle of a constructive synergy.
It was indeed in that state of mind that riders and team directors took part in this mixed team despite having to admit that their nation wouldn’t be as represented and therefore having to face the difficulties to find a decent budget. As soon as the first stage, things looked rather tough. Attivi Egue, a carpenter who also has a taxi-bike in Lomé, had only been able to train once a week. On the 91 first kilometres of the Tour, he finished last over 27 minutes adrift: “but I will try to hang on and I’m sure that during the second week all will go a lot better. For the moment, it’s just training. It’s been like this for the last four Tours I have competed inâ€, explained the last man of the overall. Unfortunately, the following day the disappointment was even bigger. Attvi was dropped by the pack after only five kilometres and finished the very tough stage to Tiébélé (25 km of dirt track) with a 1h16 deficit and a broken frame. The riders’ bus had already left.
His team mates failed to do a lot better. Indeed two of them made it to the line over an hour after winner Saadoune. All three were declared outside the allowed time delay by the officials’ jury: a real blow for the group. Despite this tough moment, the mixed team still had a member of each of the three nations in the race. They would therefore continue for honour and with still a lot of hope. “We are going to try and climb up the hill again. I have the feeling that Augustin Amoussouvi is still in good shape and I’m counting on him’’ hoped Fernand Gandaho, one of the team directors. Unfortunately the ‘’mixed boys’’ seemed to have been hit by a bad series of problems. Suffering from diarrhoea, Amoussouvi was forced to stop on numerous occasions during the stage between Kokologo and Boromo. To carry on the adventure he took the risk of hanging on to a car to get back into the pack… What a bad idea that was: diarrhoea or not, the rule book obviously doesn’t allow such a behaviour. He was kicked out of the race on that evening.
Hit by deception and a decision that he considered as being unfair, Fernand Gandaho decided to boycott the following stage with two riders still in the race but none from Benin any more. For the Bobo Dioulasso circuit stage, he however came back to help out Djibril Hassane and Kowouvi Dossouvi: “now we are going to hang on. The two remaining riders must finish the race.â€