IDK if this is the right thread, but he have been mentioned here a few times already.
Some times, often with a few years between, I find my thoughts drift away and back to the Tour de France 2011. I’m not French and I’ve always loved Contador, but for me as a cycling fan I’ve always felt I was robbed for the perfect underdog romantic miracle in the Tour that year.
After 16 stages Voeckler is in yellow with 1:45 ahead of Evans, and he have defended his Jersey brilliantly in the mountains so far. In the downhill on stage 17 Voeckler, together with Contador and Sanchez, is about to make a split and possibly gain more time on Evans and the Schlecks when he makes a error and ends up off the road. Instead of possibly increasing the lead, he loses half a minute. Half a minute lost for nothing.
After another heroic defense of his jersey at Galibier he entered the last stage with 15s lead ahead of Andy Schleck. 1:08 in front of Frank and 1:12 ahead of Evans.
When the madness starts on Col du Telegraphe Voeckler decides to follow Contador, Andy and Evans. Mistake 1 this day. It looks good for a while, but disaster is impossible to avoid. Contador and Schleck attacks and Evans gets a mechanical. Voeckler is alone, but decides to chase Contador and Schleck alone up Galibier instead of wait for the Peloton, where Evans BMC team are driving the pace, and where he has a lot of team mates himself. Mistake 2. When he finally gets caught he is pretty dead and drops quickly when the attacks starts closer to the top. When he comes over the front he has two team mates with him, and Rolland that decided to stay with the favorites. He win the stage, but Voeckler lose the Tour.
What we do know:
- His team, together with Cofidis manages to catch Sclecks, Evans, Contador and Sanchez before the Alpe d’Huez.
- Rolland was flying that day.
- Voeckler lost “only” 2min 25s to Schlecks and Evans up Alpe d’Huez even if he had killed himself on Galibier and was alone the whole climb.
- In the TT the next day, Voeckler finish 12th, far ahead of the Schlecks, and only 2:07 behind Evans.
What I always think of and never will get out of my head:
Without the crash on stage 17 and if Voeckler decided to trust his team on Telegraphe/Galibier could he actually have won that Tour?
He lost 2:52 on those two stages. In the end he was 3:20 behind Evans, so the easy answer is no. The maths don’t add up, he still miss about half a minute.
But then, I can’t stop thinking about what difference the yellow jersey on his shoulder would’ve made for Voeckler in that last time trial...
So to keep it on topic, Voeckler is possibly a great example of an overachiever if you look at his career as one compared to what you could expect of a rider like him. But then again, I can’t let it go that he perhaps underachieved those last stages in the Tour 2011, possibly because he got to carried away by the moment and was not making rational decisions in the heat of the moment at that downhill down to Pinerolo and at Telegraph/Galibier...