Stage 11 saw Chris Froome grind more dust into what is already a dead 100th edition of Le Tour, when he smashed all but world time-trial champion Tony Martin in the race's first individual time trial over 33km in Mont Saint Michel. And the only thing that kept the juiced up Kenyan from taking the stage honours as well was a change in the wind (Martin rode the stage with a tail-wind, while Froome faced a head wind - poor chap).
Just to show how much of a joke this years event is - no other GC contendor finished in the top 10. The next best was Bauke Mollema who finished 11th almost two minutes behind Froome. Although one notable performance was the magical recovery of Richie Porte who bounced back from his catastrophic day in the Pyrenees to finish 4th - Froome still smashed him by over a minute. As a result, Froome now leads the overall standings by an Armstrong like 3:25 from Alejandro Valverde with Mollema in third. Even a proven GC time trialler like Alberto Contador could not match the black stain, and now sits in 4th almost 4 minutes back. I believe they are still looking for Andy Schleck...
Tony Martin deserves credit for an outstanding performance in what is his specialist discipline. The relatively short 33km course suited him, and with him going off early enough to ride with the assistance of a headwind he was never going to be beaten by a clean athlete. He proved a deserved champion of the world in this discipline. Another strong performance came from pole Michal Kwiatowski, who finished 5th overall, and did more than enough to win back the White Jersey from Nairo Quintana. He now holds a 34 second lead over the little Colombian and it will be a good battle between these two all the way to Paris as Kwiatowski's ability against the clock will be matched by Quintana's climbing ability.
That looms as one of the few interesting contests left in this Tour. The GC is well and truly dead and with another long ITT to come in the last week the only question is weather Froome can win by 10 minutes plus. Mythical climbs such as Mont Vontoux and L'Alpe d'Huez have been rendered irrelevant by 'The Program'. For the second straight tour, the second half of the Tour will basically be a non-event, a bit like the Australian batting line up.....sad.....but true.
Oh and in one less savory event one fan thought it might be a nice idea to throw a cup of urine on Mark Cavendish. To be fair - he probably deserved it after somehow getting away with his blatant bump on poor Tom Veelers in yesterday's sprint scot free.
Yellow Jersey - Chris Froome
Green Jersey - Peter Sagan
Polka Dot Jersey - Pierre Rolland
White Jersey - Michael Kwiatowski
Blood Bags - Team Sky
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