Key moments

Once again the Tour de France has seen a sprint of the GC contenders. While the yellow jersey was picking himself up from the tarmac after crashing into the rear wheel of Kim Kirchen in the final sprint, Riccardo Ricco was lighting up the front of the stage with a blistering sprint ahead of Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans. The Italian reached the line first to claim his first stage win, the Spaniard finished second in the stage and the Australian shifted up to second overall. But Columbia can again celebrate a coup with their Luxembourg recruit become the fourth rider in 2008 to wear the yellow jersey.

The Progress Report
The sixth stage of the 2008 Tour de France, a 195.5km journey from Aigurande to Super Besse, began at 12.25pm. There were 176 riders in the race, with one of the crash victims of stage five, Aurelien Passeron (SDV) the overnight retiree. The itinerary included four categorized climbs two category-four ascents (the Cote de L’Armelle at 70km and the Cote de Crocq at 89km) and the first category-two rises in the 95th edition (the Col de la Croix-Morand at 158km and the climb to the finish). Although it was widely regarded as a mountain stage there were still three intermediate sprints in Chatelus-Malvaleix (23.5km), Cressat (44.5km) and La Bourboule (144km).

French Fugitives A Feature Again Today…
At the six kilometer Chavanel (COF) attacked and opened a gap on the peloton. This prompted a reaction from Vaugrenard (FDJ) and Bichot (AGR) who chased down the rider voted most aggressive in stage two and caught him at the 14km mark. Others attempted to bridge the gap – including Pate (TSL) and Augustyn (BAR) – but their efforts didn’t last long. At the 26km mark, a truce of sorts was declared as the yellow jersey opted to answer nature’s call and by the 28km mark, the bunch’s deficit was 2’10”. This grew to 4’00” by the end of the first hour when the leading trio contested the second sprint after racing at an average of 44.5km/h. At the 50km mark, the three were ahead by 5’00”.

Gerolsteiner led the peloton for the early part of the stage and kept the escapees within a reasonable distance. The average speed for the 2nd hour was 37.6km/h. Chavanel led over the two small climbs and, by the cote de Crocq the peloton was 4’15” behind. Silence-Lotto moved up and road on the coat-tails of the yellow jersey’s squad. At 95km, the peloton was 5’15” behind, this was the maximum gain before Gerolsteiner really picked up the pace. By the feedzone (111km), the bunch’s deficit was just 3’20”.

Col de la Croix-Morand
At the base of the first category-two climb of the 2008 Tour, the leading trio was 2’00” ahead of the peloton that was led by Gerolsteiner. The first attack came from Pauriol (C.A) but he was reeled in before the summit. There was a brief flurry with other riders – including Astarloza (EUS), De La Fuente (SDV). Vaugrenard was dropped and Chavanel did most of the work in the lead and crested the Croix-Morand climb in first. Voeckler (BTL) attacked the peloton in the final meters and claimed third place, 56” behind. The Caisse d’Epargne team which led the yellow jersey’s peloton all the way up the ascent. With 20km to go, Chavanel quit his effort and waited for the peloton. Bichot insisted and had an advantage of 25”.

Setting Up The Finale
Botcharov attacked the peloton with 18km to go. He tried to catch Bichot but the Agritubel rider refused to wait and the Russian was caught after four kilometers. The Frenchman finally surrendered with 13km to go. What happened in the lead-up to the final ascent mattered little for it was only when Piepoli (SDV) and Vande Velde (TSL) attacked that the real action began. These two got as far as 18” ahead of the peloton that was controlled by Caisse d’Epargne all the way to the final kilometer. It prompted the lead group to split until only about 20 riders remained before the steepest part of the climb. That’s when Valverde, Ricco and Evans found themselves at the front of the pack. As they began to sprint, Schumacher suffered a fall 300m from the line after crashing into Kirchen’s rear wheel. No one else fell. Ricco bolted into the lead with 300m to go and led Valverde and Evans over the line. Kirchen finished the stage in fifth place and inherited the yellow jersey from the German. Sandwiched in between the former race leader and the former green jersey leader at the top of the general classification is Cadel Evans.

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Once again Sylvain Chavanel animated the early part of a stage. The most aggressive rider of the second day this year, earned the most votes in that classification again in stage six but he also put himself in the polka-dot jersey.

“The initial aim was to escape in the hope of fetching a stage victory. Then, en route, we quickly realized that the peloton would not let us get away with more than five minutes. At the start of the stage I was a two minutes from the overall lead and I could have been a threat for the general classification. I am beginning to be known in the peloton, they know what my skills are. So, of course, I didn’t have a lot of scope.
“This prompted a change in strategy and I decided to concentrate on the polka-dot jersey, which is another objective on this Tour. It was the only thing to do. I could lead over the first three summits, which allowed me to take the lead but it remains a decisive stage. Yet to come are the major cols of the Tour; that’s where you win the climbing classification and that’s where I will have to defend.”

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The manager of the Columbia team has been at the podium protocol every day of this year’s Tour. Now that Kim Kirchen is in the yellow jersey, Bob Stapleton has to figure out what tactical approach to take for the rest of the race.

“I think we have to look at our plans carefully right now. We had hoped for this but you cannot plan on it happening. You do everything you can to win and in this case we got a break and Kim was there to capitalize on it. The yellow jersey is too big a prize to ignore. We have to do what we can to hold onto it. The thing is, it’s very early in the race.
“We brought a very mixed team. We’ve got the youngest line-up here at the Tour and it’s going to be a lot of work for them but they’re super motivated and they work really well together. I’m just really proud of the team work I’ve seen.
“It’s shown stage-by-stage that they really perform well together and are prepared to sacrifice themselves for each other.
“I think we’re going to have to be very careful with what goes on now. We’ve still got some chances for the young guys to do somethings. We’ll have to see how the race shapes up. It’d be a tall order to keep that jersey but we’ll see where the competition is at and see what’s possible.”

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At the base of the final climb, Leonardo Piepoli attacked with Christian Vande Velde. It was a move that that prompted Caisse d’Epargne to spend a lot of energy and, in turn, acted as a catalyst for Riccardo Ricco to race ahead to claim his first stage victory in the Tour de France.

“This stage is one that I targeted. Clearly it is one that suits me and he was able to finish off thanks to the beautiful work done by Leonardo Piepoli. Also the team of Valverde put in a lot of effort and I was keen to take advantage of that. It’s great! I’m really pleased to be able to deliver a victory at the Tour for my team.
“Now one of my objectives is to help Piepoli also win a stage because he should receive equal credit as me for what happened here. I just want to take it day by day and not make any predictions for what’s going to happen in the rest of the race. Now I can relax a little as a win helps take some pressure off.
“With 300 meters to go I saw Valverde easing up and insist that someone else come through for a turn. That was the right moment to attack and so, off I went… as hard as I could.
“To come to the Tour and win a stage was my main goal. Now that that has been achieved I’m going to start thinking about a second one.”

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Confessing that the profile of the sixth stage was made for him, Kim Kirchen had faith that he would be able to take over the lead of the Tour de France. An incident with the rider in the yellow jersey, Stefan Schumacher, hindered his sprint but the Columbia team rider has a golden reward for his fifth place in the stage to Super Besse.

“The whole day I believed it was possible to take the yellow jersey. It was actually ‘My’ finish; it suited me so well. I was feeling really, really good and I had tried everything. Now I’m happy I’ve got it.
“In the sprint I had to brake because it was all closed down the right side. In my sprint to the finish, there was a little gap open up between me and the first few guys and I couldn’t close it. I had some good speed and a reasonable position. I’m a little bit sorry that I couldn’t win the stage but I have two jerseys right now and that’s enough.
“I actually didn’t know that Schumacher had fallen. I was just aware of what was happening to me. The whole week I’ve been so close to the yellow jersey and I think it’s a good thing to have it now.
“Every day has been pretty hard. It was the same again today. We’ll see what happens tomorrow; we start with a climb and I hope there’ll be a breakaway again and we can control the race but in the Tour there’s never any time to rest and it’s going to be hard again.”

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