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With the gap clearly wide enough to put Hincapie in yellow Team Astana sat back and rode tempo while AG2R decided to defend as best they could. Coming to their aid at 10km to go was Garmin who put their team on the front to bring down the gap. Tactics, rivalry, bad sportsmanship….it’s all unclear as to what Garmin hoped to accomplish when in the end they gained nothing.
After the race Team Astana General Manager Johan Bruyneel explained what went on during the stage: “In the beginning we controlled the stage, as it was in theory a stage for sprinters. Then there was the breakaway. We tried to arrange it so that the breakaway took a big gap and that Hincapie, or even Le Mevel, took the jersey. First of all we have a good and long relationship with George but most important is that his team would take responsibility if they had the jersey. They would control the race then. It didn't work that way as AG2R defended the jersey, which is normal and now Nocentini is still in yellow. We know that his team will not control the stage tomorrow. That's not what we want, but that's cycling.”
Bruyneel continued, “At the end I saw something that I did not understand at all. Garmin started to chase. Why? Tactically no expanation for it. Is it that Garmin does not want another American team to take the jersey? Everybody has to defend his own interest - be it a direct result or a future thing - but when you start to chase with the only intention of preventing another team from having a success - even a team from your own country - that's not good. This will create a big story. It's not our business of course but it's not really sportive,” he concluded.
Lance Armstrong explained, “We wanted him (Hincapie) to have the jersey. It would have been great for him. I think it was pretty obvious there at the end that Garmin must have some sort of rivalry with them and maybe closed down that final thing.” Asked if Garmin came to the front to give extra help to AG2R, Lance shook his head and remarked, “I don’t know. I think it’s something personal there between those two teams. It’s too bad.” On his twitter Armstrong later seemed to respond to Hincapie’s statements by writing, “ And I reiterate: (Hincapie) deserves to be yellow tonight. He deserves more than that.”
General Classification after Stage 14
1 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 58:13:52
2 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - HTC 0:00:05
3 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:00:06
4 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 0:00:08
5 Christophe Le Mevel (Fra) Française des Jeux 0:00:43
6 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 0:00:46
7 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 0:00:54
8 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:00
9 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream 0:01:24
10 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:01:49
SHOOT: Clearly the introduction of Hincapie would potentially push out a rider from Garmin, such as Vandervelde, or demote one or more. One can, I suppose, offer favours in this race, but is the win then really a win? Is a pity though, Hincapie is one of the Tour's legends.
Team Columbia-HTC’s George Hincapie narrowly missed taking the yellow jersey by a slim five-second margin, a miss he clearly blamed on the efforts of Team Astana and Garmin in his post-race interview. With emotions obviously running high and disappointment written all over his face, Hincapie looked to both teams for narrowing the gap instead of making the team of race leader Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R) work alone. The reality was that Astana rode tempo while AG2R decided to work before Garmin upped the pace with 10km to go, a tactic unclear to most unless the reasoning lies in the inter-team rivalry between the two teams. Add into the mix that Team Columbia sprinted for 13th place when they could have worked earlier to foil the efforts of Garmin by foregoing their sprint possibilities and putting the team on the front to control the tempo and you see the handful of seconds slipping away for Hincapie.
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Stage 13, below.
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