Cobra Srikes Again As Evans Crashes

While Mark Cavendish may be the new star of the sprinting ranks, 2008 has also seen a new star born amongst the climbers. Just as Cavendish did yesterday, Riccardo Ricco (aka 'The Cobra') won his second stage of this year's Tour with a dominant climbing display on the 224km stage from Toulouse to Bagneres de Bigorre. Ricco finished over a minute clear of Vladimir Efimkin with Cyril Dessel leading the remnants of the peleton home in third as part of an elite group containing all the overall contenders, including Cadel Evans who crashed earlier in the stage just after the feed zone.

But the delay belonged to Ricco who burst out of the peleton on the Col d'Aspin to record one of the more memorable solo victories the race has seen. While Evans received medical attention from the doctors car after his crash, he managed to rejoin the lead group without too many problems. While he survived the day, the effect of a crash on a rider tends to be felt in following days. And with Stage 10 taking the field over the epic climb of the Col du Tourmalet and up to the mountain top finish at the ski-station of Hautacam (this years first HC climbs), Evans better hope that his body has not stiffened up too severely overnight. Given that all the major contenders finished with each other overnight though, Evans still remains the race favourite. Although for those financially investing on the event Evans now looks a more risky prospect, and it may pay to wait a few days to see how the crash effects him.

Improved performances were seen from Damiano Cunego, who finished with the lead group for the first time for a few stages, and Australian youngster Trent Lowe who showed his potential for the future with an excellent climbing performance that saw him finish around half a minute behind cycling's biggest stars. Stefan Schumacher was not so lucky. He was cracked on the ascent of the d'Aspin and slipped from third to fourth overall after losing around 40 seconds to the lead group. He is likely to lose more and more time from here on in and will continue to fall from his currently elevated GC position.

While this was the first high mountains stage of the tour, Kim Kirchen's 12th place finish was enough to see him regain his leads in the points competition from Oscar Freire who lost around 20 minutes on the stage. Kirchen also maintained the yellow jersey with his performance and still holds his 6 second lead over Evans. David De La Fuente picked up sufficient points on the day's mountains to hold his lead in the King of the Mountains competition, but stage winner Ricco is closing in. Trailing De La Fuente by only 11 points, he must be some chance of stealing the jersey tonight, and is now my favourite to be wearing the polka dot jersey in Paris. Thomas Lovkvist finally lost his White Jersey, after finishing around 6 mintues back from Ricco on the stage. The lead in the Best Young Rider competition now passes to Andy Schleck, and he too will be well favoured to wear it the rest of the way to Paris.

Yellow Jersey - Kim Kirchen
Green Jersey - Kim Kirchen
Polka Dot Jersey - David De La Fuente
White Jersey - Andy Schleck