Evans Holds Firm As Menchov Loses Time; Vande Velde Loses Tour

On a day when the French celebrated a stage quinella with Cyril Dessel defeating countrymen Sandy Casar, Denis Menchov lost 30 seconds on the descent from Restefond, while Christian Vande Velde saw his tour hopes go up in smoke after he finished three and a half minutes behind his main GC rivals.

The stage again saw a breakaway survive the high mountain passes with Dessel having the strongest legs at the end of Stage 16 from Cuneo to Jausiers. His sprint was enough to defeat fellow breakaway companions Casar, and David Arroyo who filled the podium in third. The remainder of the ten man break that included stars such as George Hincapie and Yaroslav Popovych finished in gaps up to a minute back.

In terms of the GC the big losers on the day were Menchov and Vande Velde. Menchov again found a creative way to lose time, this time getting skittish on the descent from the final climb of the day, while Vande Velde showed his first sign of weakness for the Tour after cracking on the climb up the Cime de la Bonette-Restefond and then crashing on the descent. He can no longer win the tour. Cadel Evans importantly held his ground on the remainder of his rivals, and now is only one high mountain stage away from winning the tour given his time trialling ability (but what a mountain stage it will be!). With the rest of the favourites finishing together Frank Schleck still holds a seven second lead over Bernhard Kohl in the race for the yellow jersey.

Again the high mountain stage meant there was no change to the points competition, and with a 10-man breakaway taking all the points on the climbs there was no real change to the King of the Mountains competition either. However, poor day from Vincenzo Nabali, who lost over 5 minutes to the winner of the stage, has seen a change in the Best Young Rider classification. The White Jersey now passes to Andy Schleck by just six seconds, a well deserved reward for a man that has worked tirelessly for his brother in the Alps so far.

But the inability of the better climbers to put more time into Evans on the stage means we are likely to see some major fireworks on the slopes of L'Alpe d'Huez tonight. Frank Schleck, Kohl and Carlos Sastre (currently trailling Evans) will all need more advantage than they currently have to hold him off in the final time trial. Given the seeming reluctance of Team CSC to blow the peleton apart overnight, it seems everything is being left down to tonight's stage. We can expect to see the time-trial specialists, Evans and Menchov hit repeatedly by the CSC boys and Kohl as they try to get as much time as possible heading into Saturday's final time trial. Menchov will also have to put time into Evans somehow, as he is unlikely to beat him by a minute (if at all!) in the race against the clock. It is unfortunate that the powerful Russian seems to lose time on the most random and unneccessary of occasions.

Yellow Jersey - Frank Schleck
Green Jersey - Oscar Freire
Polka Dot Jersey - Bernhard Kohl
White Jersey - Andy Schleck