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93rd Tour de France - presented by

Stage 14, Montélimar - Gap, 181K

16 July

Dust Devil's Daily Wrap
French Renaissance

Dust Devil's Daily Wrap, Stage List, Stage Profile, Photos

If I would've had my way, I would've had Salvatore Commesso would've taken victory in Gap over Pierrick Fedrigo. I really like the scrappy, punchy style of the stoudt little double-Italian champ. Always with his sleeves roled up and ready to break-away! Who could forget the stage in 2000, where he and Vinokourov broke away together and came to a complete stop inside the kilometre to go banner, like it was a track race! Of course Commesso forced Vino to lead out and then took it from him in the sprint.

Another great outcome would've been to see Christian Vandevelde take the victory. Talk about a nice guy! And a very entertaining interview (check out the Christian Vandevelde interview BiciRace.com did earlier this year). But, he came up just short.

It's turning out to be a pretty decent showing for French cycling overall this year. A couple of stage wins by French riders, Even more success for French teams (a few days in Yellow). This has to be their best showing since who knows when.

OK, so here we sit with Pereiro in Yellow. With the rest day tomorrow and Alpe d' Huez on Tuesday, the GC should look alot different at the top of the Alpe. In the top 10, Dessel and Rogers will be gone after Tuesday. Leipheimer should leapfrog up the GC quite a bit. Of the entire top 20, I think he will make the biggest gains. He has to be feeling like Alex Zulle did in 1999 when he crashed on the Passage du Gois. Without that crash (or Leipheimer's abysmal TT performance last week in Rennes as the case may be) he would be sitting very close to the top of the leaderboard. But instead, he's probably saying, "what if?".

Haimar Zubeldia could move up a little as well. But the way Euskaltel is riding, it's more likely they will see him get dropped when the hammer goes down.

Pereiro will probably turn himself inside out defending his jersey. Heck, he might even be so motivated that he can keep it. We know he can climb pretty well. But, something tells me that when the GC boys blow the race to smithereens Tuesday at the foot of the Alpe, he will not be able to follow the lead group.

We should also see quite a bit of action from Rabobank. Michael Rasmussen will be keen to pick up some more KOM points. And being a guy who calls himself a climber, would probably not mind bagging an Alpe d'Huez victory while he's at it.
- The Dust Devil

General classification after stage 14
1 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 64.05.04
2 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak 1.29
3 Cyril Dessel (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance 1.37
4 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 2.30
5 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 2.46
6 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 3.21
7 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile 3.58
8 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile 4.51
9 Juan Miguel Mercado (Spa) Agritubel 5.02
10 Christophe Moreau (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance 5.13
11 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Discovery Channel 5.44
12 Marcus Fothen (Ger) Gerolsteiner 5.46
13 Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 5.55
14 Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger) T-Mobile 7.07
15 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 7.08
16 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 7.23
17 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 8.16
18 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 8.36
19 José Azevedo (Por) Discovery Channel 9.11
20 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC 10.06