Cadel Evans' Race in Tatters: Tour de France Stage Nine Standings and Results

Stage nine of the 2010 Tour de France—a 204 kilometre trip from Morzine-Avoriaz to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne—may well go down in the history books as the stage that determined the outcome of this year’s race.

For 147 kilometres it seemed like nothing would happen. There were attacks and a breakaway that included Luis-Leon Sanchez, Damiano Cunego, Sandy Casar, and Anthony Charteau, but all focus was on the main pack, which included all of the General Classification contenders.

And then the brutal climb up the hors categorie, Col de la Madeleine, saw the carnage begin. One by one, the big names exploded. Bradley Wiggins, Michael Rogers, Ivan Basso, Lance Armstrong, Aleksandr Vinokourov, and, finally, Cadel Evans all fell off the back of the pack, leaving Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck and Astana’s Alberto Contador left to fight it out.

The day started with Evans' BMC team controlling the peloton and the man himself looking comfortable, but then as they hit the final climb Saxo Bank moved forward and upped the pace, and then Astana repeated the dose, moving the peloton beyond breaking point.

The yellow jersey sat very heavily on Cadel Evans’ shoulders. He clearly did not want to wear it this early in the race and, as in previous years, the pressure of being the race leader and being targeted by everyone else in the race proved too much.

Schleck and Contador had disposed of everyone in the top ten and set about trying to break each other. Schleck launched attack after attack, hoping to put Contador into difficulty. Contador then returned the favour.

What is remarkable is that while these two guys were playing cat and mouse, they were still putting distance between themselves and the following riders and, at the same time, closing in on the leaders.

There is an ad running on TV at the moment for Specialized Bicycles. It features Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador training on stationary bikes and getting into a very blokey argument over who is best. Today, on the road, life imitated art (if a TV ad can be art), as they traded metaphorical blows on their identical bikes.

Stunningly, Schleck and Contador pulled back two minutes on the lead bunch on the descent down the mountain and across the valley floor, catching the lead group of four within 800 metres of the finish.

Francaise des Jeux’s Sandy Casar claimed the stage win, but more importantly for the overall result, neither Schleck or Contador lost time to anyone during the stage, and both managed to increase their gaps over every other rider. Schleck’s efforts rode him to the yellow jersey. Let’s hope that he wears it better than his predecessor did.

While the leaders celebrated their efforts, the toll the day had taken on Cadel Evans boiled over as he crossed the finish line. He clasped the hand of Mauro Santambrogio in thanks for his efforts and support before collapsing in tears at the enormity of seeing his chances for a race victory all but evaporate after losing over eight minutes to the leaders.

Such is the effect of this race on even the toughest of competitors.

*Since the time of writing, it has been made public that Evans had been suffering with a fractured elbow as a result of a fall early on Stage Eight, which makes some of the observations seem a little harsh.

There is no doubt that Evans did not want to be in the yellow jersey and on those occasions where he has worn it in the past, the pressure has affected the way he rode, but on this occasion there were clearly other factors in play. let's hope that he can recover sufficiently to complete the Tour.

Standings after Stage Nine

1.    SCHLECK A.            43h 35' 41"
2.    CONTADOR A.             00' 41"
3.    SANCHEZ S.               02' 45"
4.    MENCHOV D.              02' 58"
5.    VAN DEN BROECK J.     03' 31"
6.    LEIPHEIMER L.             03' 59"
7.    GESINK R.                  04' 22"
8.    SANCHEZ L.                04' 41"
9.    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER J.   05' 08"
10.    BASSO I.                  05' 09"