Tour de l'Aude 2010

[Skip Madness]

I'd imagine Cervélo won't be worried about Annie van Vleuten ahead of tomorrow, but still, fair play to her. She's been riding very similarly to Marianne Vos this season, good sprints and well-timed escapes.

Regina Bruins up to third, too. Otherwise as you were.

Any predictions for tomorrow? Pooley to take it out in style? Early attack from Vos? I reckon Stevens will attack on the Col du Dent if not before - if she's got any sense she'll try to stretch it out on one of those descents. The best hope for Vos and Johansson is to go early but I don't think they'll be able to get anything out of the stage. Claudia Häusler may be content with Pooley holding the yellow but she might want to save face a bit. Cervélo have monitored the attacks pretty much perfectly, it seems.

Exciting!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

It's Pooley's to lose, and I can't see it...

 

[lukesdad]

Hey FM have you just been doing dinner or....Woken up! or what?...

 

[Legs]

Here's hoping for no jour sans for Emma! Je me croise les doigts

 

[Skip Madness]

There's a very short interview in French with Emma Pooley 13:20 into the video here, although it's about the blossoming of young Anglophone riders at the moment compared to French riders rather than anything to do with the race specifically (the timeline to drag the video along is in the bottom left of the screen when you move the mouse).

I'm mainly highlighting this because I always like hearing the British riders doing the foreign language stuff! Allez Emma!

 

[BigSteev]

I'm hearing Pooley again today.

 

[Legs]

Immense. If the Giro's her aim for the season, I can't see anyone touching her on the Stelvio.

 

[Skip Madness]

The twitter page of Jim Miller (chap who works with USA Cycling) says Pooley ahead of Abbott for the stage, and that with 5km to go the gaps were approximately 2'00" from those two back to Häusler and Johansson, 3'20" to Laws and Worrack and 4'00" back to the group of Vos, Mattis and Stevens (who it seems was further up but crashed at some point).

Job all but done!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Awesome!

 

[Skip Madness]

Stage results:

01 Emma Pooley (Cervélo) 3:04'19"
02 Mara Abbott (United States) +08"
03 Emma Johansson (RedSun) +2'18"
04 Claudia Häusler (Cervélo) +2'18"
05 Trixi Worrack (Noris) +4'11"
06 Sharon Laws (Cervélo) +4'11"
07 Evelyn Stevens (HTC) +4'11"
08 Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit) +4'52"
09 Carla Swart (MTN) +4'52"
10 Christel Ferrier-Bruneau (Vienne Futuroscope) +4'52"
11 Regina Bruins (Cervélo) +4'52"
12 Katheryn Mattis (United States) +4'52"
13 Lina Villumsen (HTC) +4'52"
14 Vicki Whitelaw (Lotto) +4'52"
15 Tatiana Antoshina (Valdarno) +4'52"
16 Andrea Bosman (Leontien) +4'52"
17 Annemiek Van Vleuten (Nederland Bloeit) +4'52"
18 Tatiana Guderzo (Valdarno) +4'52"
19 Loes Gunnewijk (Nederland Bloeit) +4'58"
20 Liesbet de Vocht (Nederland Bloeit) +7'55"

General classification:

01 Emma Pooley (Cervélo) 18:28'28"
02 Mara Abbott (United States) +4'42"
03 Emma Johansson (RedSun) +5'40"
04 Claudia Häusler (Cervélo) +6'51"
05 Annemiek Van Vleuten (Nederland Bloeit) +7'08"
06 Evelyn Stevens (HTC) +7'45"
07 Regina Bruins (Cervélo) +7'48"
08 Katheryn Mattis (United States) +7'54"
09 Sharon Laws (Cervélo) +8'04"
10 Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit) +9'00"
11 Loes Gunnewijk (Nederland Bloeit) +9'02"
12 Trixi Worrack (Noris) +10'36"
13 Andrea Bosman (Leontien) +10'42"
14 Christel Ferrier-Bruenau (Vienne Futuroscope) +11'10"
15 Liesbet de Vocht (Nederland Bloeit) +12'06"
16 Lina Villumsen (HTC) +12'18"
17 Vicki Whitelaw (Lotto) +14'36"
18 Tatiana Antoshina (Valdarno) +17'52"
19 Carla Swart (MTN) +26'57"
20 Carla Ryan (Cervélo) +32'17"

Lizzie Armitstead finished in the gruppetto today. It sounds like Evie Stevie was doing quite well until her crash.

I'm glad that Pooley has a stage win, it rounds it off nicely. Yeah, two more days, tomorrow potentially lively etc. but she just needs to keep upright now.

 

[Skip Madness]

Twitter has it that Marianne Vos won today's stage - no changes to the GC. One more day down, one more to go.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Yeah, she got it by 4 seconds over a group containing all the favourites, except Evelyn Stevens, who didn't start today... Emma is cruising home now!

 

[Will1985]

Teutenberg won today's stage and the GC stayed the same.

Well done Emma

 

[Skip Madness]

This really is an amazing season for her. Winning left, right and centre, and now taking the second biggest stage race of the lot. You can't realistically expect her to be able to maintain her condition for the Giro... but we can hope. At best she'll be a very strong candidate, but even if her forms dips a bit she'll be a dangerous outsider. Having gone ten days without a bad one, we know she can last the distance. The longer descents in Italy could be a problem, but climbing this well...

Excellent stuff. She's the best in the world on current form. Considerably so.

 

[Crankarm]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/470373/pooley-wins-tour-de-l-aude-overall.html

An excellent win for Emma.