Tour de France Begining To Take Toll On Riders

Each year the Tour does it’s damage, weather it’s severe crashes, bad luck or good ole wear and tear the Tour de France takes riders out. Today was just such a day with three notable riders not continuing:

• Yens Voight
  Today as I began to peel my eyes open around 7am I watched the first frames of OLN coverage and they were talking about riders that did not start todays stage. For Yens Voight it was a sad affair as he missed the cut of time in yesterdays stage by less than one darn minute (at each stage riders have to finish the stage within an allotted time to be able to start the following day – this can often be tricky for riders who have a tough time in the mountains). It was just days ago that the German cyclist was wearing the yellow jersey (if only for one day) after staying away from the peleton for about two hours in a break away with French star Christophe Moreau. After the stage Yens mentioned that he “would have to pay for that breakaway in the days to come” what a bummer for Yens. None the less it was great to see him on the offensive last week and wearing yellow!
• Tom Boonen
  What can I say about this, another sad moment for Tom Boonen when he decided not to continue today after several crashes in less than two weeks time. I would imagine that Tom figured his chances were getting slim now that the tour was into the tough Alps and moving into the Pyrenees (possible elimination due to not coming in within the time limit – see Yens Voight above). What makes this especially tough is the fact that Tom was leading the Green Jersey competition and surely would have liked to finish in Paris.
• Manuel Beltran
  Beltran riding for Discovery / Armstrong had a bit of bad luck today out on stage 12 falling at low speeds which often times can be just as bad as crashing at higher speeds due to the fact that the body can fall at a sharper angle and break bones or cause sprains. This was just the case as Manuel Beltran fell and hurt his already aligning knee. This could pose problems for Discovery / Armstrong as they head into the Pyrenees this weekend (Beltran is what is called a “pure climber” and often sets huge tempos on the mountain climbs to suppress any attacks by rival teams. Armstrong has also prided himself with bringing in a full team of nine riders into Paris, it won’t happen this year but I do think the team has enough deepth to “cover” this mishap.