Yer man Jens got tooled by 3 Frenchy dudes. He should be ashamed:p :blush2: Fun to watch, tho I was pulling for him. Not too upset to see Vassuer win, tho.

Yer man Jens got tooled by 3 Frenchy dudes. He should be ashamed:p :blush2: Fun to watch, tho I was pulling for him. Not too upset to see Vassuer win, tho.

Cedric Vasseur sucks. As do the rest of the guys who obviously cheated to rob him of the stage win he so richly deserved.

I have to say that I was amazed that gaining 10 minutes on GC only moved him up 5 places, from 36 to 31. If anyone in the top 25 had gained 10 minutes, they'd be in yellow tonight, but Jens gets 5 places only!

I'm looking forward to watching it on TV tonight nonetheless. Because hey, it's Jens.

EDIT: Oops. I just saw: He only gained about 5 minutes. Still, that's a hell of a lot of time further up the GC. I'm surprised he didn't move up more.

I knew he was pretty much d*cked when it was 1 k to go and he was in front.

He also was protecting his right side but when he moved away from the barriers looking over his left shoulder, he opened the way to get passed.

Len

I was rooting for him too but I suspect the other riders know all about his strengths and were not about to let him win.

Always good to see a Frenchman win a stage that is meaningless to the overall :eek:

I suspect they (the French) will take whatever they can get at this point. After all, it's been 22 yrs.....

Vassuer may be French, but at least he rides for Quick Step.

BTW did you notice that CSC moved into the lead of the team standings because of Jens in the break today?

Vassuer was hanging on the back of the group from about 30k in to the finish line. I even said to my girlfriend (not that she was watching) that this punk from Quickstep was going to squeak by Jens at the line after Jens had been doing the bulk of the pulling.

Punk? Smart racing is what it was. From what I saw (which was a lot) there was a lot of attacking going on up to the last k. Jens got stuck out front with 1 k to go. They know how strong he is so no one attacked 'till the very end so he didn't have time to react. He made a mistake by letting him (Vassuer) get to his right. It was over then (for Jens). Had they had 10 (or 1) more meters to go, Cassar would've had the win.

If you watch the sprint again you could see he had nothing left in his legs.Too bad, Jens is always entertaining.

Jens Rules !

If you havent yet, watch the "extras" on the "Overcoming" DVD. It's sooooo frustrating seeing what Jens has to go through when pulling for Ivan and closing the gap with the Ullrich escapee group.


[edit] found some footage on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HsNHe98tHmA

Jens Rules !

If you havent yet, watch the "extras" on the "Overcoming" DVD. It's sooooo frustrating seeing what Jens has to go through when pulling for Ivan and closing the gap with the Ullrich escapee group.


[edit] found some footage on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HsNHe98tHmA

That footage is awesome! "My loyalty belongs to my team, my leader, and my boss." It doesn't get any better than that.

Cedric Vasseur sucks. As do the rest of the guys who obviously cheated to rob him of the stage win he so richly deserved.


Ha what a laugh, Jens is a great rider but he rode dumb yesterday, Vasseur rode smart he didn't rob anyone its called tactics and winning.

Ha what a laugh, Jens is a great rider but he rode dumb yesterday, Vasseur rode smart he didn't rob anyone its called tactics and winning.

Um, get humor much?

And it's nice to know that you think at least SOME tactics are fair and not "bad form."

It's a known fact that Jens will often ride too hard for his own good, which probably happened this time too. But he only really "rode dumb" if going in the break and working hard to make it stick is dumb. He was at a tactical disadvantage at the end, as it sounds like the other 4 guys were working (or rather, NOT working) on the assumption that they'd rather tire Jens out and take their chances with each other. I haven't seen the whole stage yet, but I did see the finish, and it looked like Jens just didn't have the gas at the end. He can't win everything, much to my chagrin, but at least his performance bumped CSC back to the top of the team standings.

Vassuer was hanging on the back of the group from about 30k in to the finish line. I even said to my girlfriend (not that she was watching) that this punk from Quickstep was going to squeak by Jens at the line after Jens had been doing the bulk of the pulling.

That's unfair. Vassuer didn't do anything but follow when they were attacking each other on the climb, but once they settled down, he was working with the group. Around 4K, everybody sat on Jens until the end. Jens made the choice to do the bulk of the work, which probably cost him the race. You can't blame Vassuer if Voigt offers to drag him to the line.