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93rd Tour de France - presented by

Stage 16, Bourg d'Oisans - La Toussuire, 182K

19 July

Dust Devil's Daily Wrap
Anarchy in the Alps!

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

Tour de France is going off the rails! You can't tell what's going to happen from one day to the next. And that's good in my opinion. Unpredictability is something that has been seriously lacking for the last seven years. Well, six years since we didn't know Armstrong would dominate in '99.

Anyways. Who would've guessed that Landis would blow in such spectacular fashion? I sure didn't. He looked pretty good all throughout the day, poker face on as usual. Just like that, boom! His Tour is over. He's not even in the top 10 any more. It's too bad, he would've made a worthy winner.

Before the Rennes TT, I was talking about the possibility of an all American podium. Well, that's gone up in smoke. In fact, Levi Leipheimer will be lucky to stay in the top 10 overall all the way to Paris. But more about that later.

So, we see Oscar Pereiro back in the yellow jersey again! If he holds that all the way to Paris, whoever comes in second is going to regret the day they let him up the road go for a half an hour! Imagine, he was actually down almost a half an hour at one point! That kind of a gap probably hasn't ever been closed in the post war era.

What a coup for Pereiro, though. You gotta give the Spaniard credit, he has ridden with alot of heart in this Tour, and if wins, he will definitely deserve it.

Carlos Sastre: Sweet attack by Sastre! I didn't think he had the legs for an attack like that in this Tour. Maybe he should've waited longer before attacking, he may have gained more time....? But, things are looking good for him and CSC now. And things are looking even better for the fans tomorrow. The way things sit after today, it is still very much up in the air and nobody can sit comfortably in their GC position. It should be pretty exciting.

Levi Leipheimer has been doing everything in his power in the past few days to close his gap on the yellow jersey but here he still sits 7:46 arrears of Pereiro! Doing alot and going nowhere.

Cyril Dessel is sure suprising me. I guess I didn't know what kind of rider he was. But, I guess just being French I didn't expect much. But he has ridden a pretty damn gutsy TDF so far. And with some stellar support in the closing kilos from teammate Christophe Moreau, he finished looking pretty strong.

Michael Rasmussen is a pretty unique rider. Alot of people attempt early breakaways like he did today and they rarely succeed. Of course it helps that he is no GC threat whatsoever. But even still, everybody wants a stage win. He barely hung on with Sastre and then Pereiro closing fast. He feasted on KOM points today and succeeded in his goal to come to the Tour and be the KOM, and now he is with probably very little threat between now and the end of the race.

Tomorrow should be even more exciting than the last two days! Carlos Sastre will be forced to go on the attack if he wants to dis-lodge Pereiro from Yellow. Andreas Kloden, Cyril Dessel, Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov are all within striking distance. Although I doubt Dessel's ability to do anything besides damage control.

I'll tell you what though, T-Mobile need to work on their tactics. And when I say "tactics", I use the term loosely. I almost fell out of my chair laughing today when they towed Landis back up to the attackers (Menchov,Rogers and Evans) when they had a guy in the attack! Unbelievable! It's like a Cat 4 race when you're doing things like that.

The way things are going, anything can happen and that's what the Tour needed.
- The Dust Devil