Tour de Luxembourg

[jaylew]

Interesting to see that Andy Schleck took the sprint today from a group that included Bazayev and Breschel. Maybe Matti tried to set him up b/c it's his home tour.

Bazayev in yellow. He's come along nicely in the last year or so.

Anyone watching this one?

 

[Mellow Velo]

Its a bit hard. Ten minutes of tv coverage each evening, rtl tele letzebuerg 19:50-20:00 CEST, is all there is. I've managed to miss all the coverage!
No live net feed available.
Otherwise I think people would need a post Giro fix.

 

[Cartesian Centaur]

Not watching, but there's a twitter feed you can follow to while away the long afternoons, or afternoon I guess, since the race finishes tomorrow.

http://www.aotdl.com/live-ticker/

 

[Delicato]

In the final few kilometers, Fränk Schleck and Andreas Klöden and Marco Marcato, established a gap. Then with two kilometers to go, Schleck attacked and no one could follow. He crossed the line alone for a solo victory in front of cheering fans.

That is a quote from CN's race report. Seems interesting, since Marcato lost nearly two minutes in just 2 km's. Breschel is a good all-rounder, he is now fourth overall.

 

[Cartesian Centaur]

It's about that point the live ticker gave up, I think the last post was 1k to go, Schleck in the lead, and then nothing.
Good to learn how it panned out!

I guess the only thing left now is for Fränk and Andy to cross the finish line first arm in arm tomorrow.

 

[davidw]

Amazingly, the whole thing appears to be raced within the borders of Luxembourg:

http://www.aotdl.com/app/download/378450203/Le+Parcours.pdf

Although they do appear to reuse a fair amount of roads...

 

[jaylew]

Not very many Luxembourg riders participating, huh? Looks like only 5. An no Lux winner since 1983. Interesting that neither Schleck bro nor Kirchen has ever won.

Until tomorrow...

 

[ingsve]

Looking at todays results it seems like Saxo Bank are dominating in a way that is very rare. 4 guys in the top 6 of the stage and 6 guys in the top 14 of the GC. They's starting to get their tour form together. Going to be interesting to see what happens in Tour de Suisse.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Yesterday's stage:-
http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/videoarchiv/v/20090606/5/20015967/?ver=silverlight

Previous day's stage:-
http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/videoarchiv/v/20090605/5/20015959/
Very brief!

 

[Zoncolan]

Yesterday's stage:-
http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/videoarchiv/v/20090606/5/20015967/?ver=silverlight

Previous day's stage:-
http://tele.rtl.lu/waatleeft/videoarchiv/v/20090605/5/20015959/
Very brief!

Awfully brief!
Thanks for the link nonetheless!

 

[Christian]

Not very many Luxembourg riders participating, huh? Looks like only 5. An no Lux winner since 1983. Interesting that neither Schleck bro nor Kirchen has ever won.

Until tomorrow...

There are not many Luxembourg riders participating because we really don't have all that many that can ride at that level. We have one Continental team that participated, but they also have German, French and Swedish riders that are pretty good. Kim Kirchen hasn't raced in the TdL for at least since he signed with T-Mobile I'd say, they just never participated. Last year, Benoît Joachim (former domestique of Lance Armstrong) was on the Astana team, but he didn't get a contract for this season and has inofficially finished his career. The last Luxembourgish winner before Fränk Schleck was Lucien Didier, a domestique of Bernard Hinault. After he stopped riding we never really had a rider who turned pro until the early 2000's. His son Laurent Didier rides for Team Designa Kokken in Denmark and has good chances of getting a contract with Saxo Bank (he already rode a couple of races with them last year as a Stagiaire). U23 rider Ben Gastauer of Chambéry CF (which is associated with AG2R) will most likely turn pro in the next years as well, he just won the Tour des Pays de Savoie and took second in the Flèche Wallone.

The Tour de Luxembourg is a great race through a cycling-crazy country. Even though not that many big names are participating, there are tons of people on the roads cheering for the riders. I was at the prologue in Luxembourg-City, as well as on the stage where Fränk Schleck won, and it was both times a ton of fun. Can't wait for next year!