Le Tour 2014: Stage 15, Tallard / Nîmes

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Rafal Majka was clear by :24 at the finish but it sure looked as if Vincenzo Nibali was leaving something in the tank.  He barely even got out of the saddle to attack twice in the final 4 km which has the grouchy also rans talking about doping again, but frankly, he was never challenged except by the pure climbers and all of the top GC contenders are out of range for one reason or another.

On the stage it was Rafal Majka, Vincenzo Nibali (:24), Jean-Christophe Péraud (:26), Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet tied at :50, and Tejay Van Garderen (:54).  At under 2 minutes you had Frank Schleck (1:01), Laurens Ten Dam (1:07), Leopold Konig (1:20), and Alejandro Valverde BelMonte, Haimar Zubeldia Agirre, and Pierre Rolland at 1:24.  There were 5 more riders under 3 minutes behind, 6 under 4, 4 under 6, and 9 under 9.  Everybody else was farther back than that.

In the General Classification it is Vincenzo Nibali, Alejandro Valverde BelMonte (4:37), Romain Bardet (4:50), Thibaut Pinot (5:06), Tejay Van Garderen (5:49), Jean-Christophe Péraud (6:08), Bauke Mollema (8:33), and Leopold Konig (9:32).  Everybody else is more than 10 minutes behind.  For Points it is Peter Sagan (361), Bryan Coquard (191), Alexander Kristoff (172), Marcel Kittel (167), Vincenzo Nibali (134), Mark Renshaw (118), André Greipel (117), and Greg Van Avermaet (115).  Everyone else is 28 points behind.  In the Climbing championship it is Joaquim Rodriguez and Rafal Majka tied at 88 with Vincenzo Nibali at 86.  Everyone else is 37 points behind.  In the Team competition it is AG2R, Belkin (12:42), Sky (38:16), Astana (46:10), Movistar (47:44), and BMC (51:01).  Everyone else is over 1 hour behind.  In Youth it is Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot (:16),  Michal Kwiatkowski (14:34), and Tom Dumoulin (47:18).  Everyone else is over an hour behind.

Today’s 138 mile stage, Tallard / Nîmes, is down hill with bumps and then flat, flat, flat.  There are no rated climbs and the Sprint Checkpoint is a little less than 50 km from the finish.  In short it sets up for a bunch sprint if the sprinters have any legs left after the Alps.  It is exposed and cross winds could break up the peleton.

Oh, and tomorrow is the last rest day.