CYCLING/Tour de France: When American cycling fans wonder who will succeed Lance Armstrong as the nation's next Tour de France star, they probably have the fate of Belgium in the back of their minds. It is 27 years since the great Eddy Merckx retired, and his apparent successor in terms of ability and charisma has only just appeared.
Yesterday a strapping lad named Tom Boonen sprinted into this little village at the front of a lead group of 23 to take his third Tour stage win in two years and take an early option on the green jersey of points leader. Paris is 19 stages and three mountain ranges away, but Boonen is already many observers' favourite for the award that goes to the best sprinter in the race.
"This week will be really important for the sprinters," he said. "After the end of the week there are maybe one or two stages that are good for us, whoever holds the green jersey at the end of the week is in with a strong chance."
Boonen won 20 races last year, including the most prestigious finish of the Tour, on the Champs Elysees, in addition to the stage in Angers. This April, in the space of a week, he added two of the sport's greatest one-day Classics, the Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.
He is 24, is as at home in English as he is in Flemish, and was the object two years ago of a transfer battle between Armstrong's US Postal and the Belgian Quickstep squad. Together with his spiky hair and magnificently cultivated stubble, this is headier stuff than Belgium has known since the days of the "Cannibal".
Yesterday there was power and panache in Boonen's finish sprint, as he came off the wheel of the Australian Robbie McEwen, twice points winner in the Tour and regarded as the best of all the fastmen who traditionally dominate the first week of the race. A few seconds and 250 metres later, by the finish line, Boonen was well over a bike length clear.
His victory salute included pointing inwards with both outstretched hands: "Look at me," he was clearly saying. For a man who was rushed to a dentist on Friday with an abscess under a tooth it was a remarkable performance, and in the absence of the Tour's other dominant sprinter, Alessandro Petacchi, it may well be seen again in the flat stages that last until Saturday.
That Boonen relieved Lance Armstrong of the green jersey was barely a distraction for the Texan. The green is awarded to the runner-up in the opening stage and was given to Armstrong after he finished second on Saturday to his fellow American David Zabriskie, who retained the yellow jersey yesterday, when Jan Ullrich's dire start to the race continued, through no fault of his own this time.
Behind Boonen, the field split after a crash in the final kilometre; Ullrich was the only race favourite in the first half, with Armstrong five seconds slower. Initially the German was credited with the five seconds, but later the referees reversed the decision, on the grounds the crash amounted to an outside incident in the final three kilometres, in which case the whole field is given the same time as the winner.
Given that Ullrich had lost one minute eight seconds to Armstrong in his disastrous first stage time trial on Saturday, yesterday's five seconds would not have changed much but it at least would have been welcome progress after a weekend in which Armstrong's dream seventh victory looks a good deal closer, while Ullrich has merely had a nightmare.
If the collective dreams of an entire region counted for anything, the stage victory would have gone to the local team, sponsored by the phone company Bouygues Telecom, managed by the local hero of the 1980s, Jean-Rene Bernaudeau, and formed largely of home-grown riders from the Vendee.
Just what was meant by four fans dressed up as giant cardboard mobile phones - yellow, green and red polka dot - may not have been obvious, but the message rang through: France needs a stage win or more from Bouygues' charismatic leader Thomas Voeckler, the national hero last year after he wore the yellow jersey for 10 stages.
Yesterday was his Saint's day, so "Bonne fete Thomas," proclaimed the roadside banners and, rather optimistically, "Thomas in the yellow jersey this evening". Voeckler duly engaged in a quixotic escape throughout the stage, together with another Frenchman, Sylvain Calzati, the only Hungarian in the race, Laszlo Bodrogi, who finished fifth on Saturday, and the Spaniard David Canada.
The dearth of French heroes was underlined by more than one banner lamenting the retirement last year of the drug-disgraced Richard Virenque, who made the polka-dot best climber's jersey his own seven times. The polka dots have become to mean much to the French roadside support in recent years, being about the only award within reach of the home men other than the daily prize for "most combative" rider. Yesterday's only ascent carrying points for the competition was a mere molehill but Voeckler sped up it to earn the coveted jersey.
Today, meanwhile, Tours awaits the Tour, with the finish at the end of the almost two-mile long Avenue de Grammont, finish of the Paris-Tours one-day Classic. That race is known as the sprinters' Classic; today's stage is almost flat and so Belgium will expect Boonen to deliver another blast from the past.
Guardian Service
Irish professional Philip Deignan raced to a first professional victory yesterday when he won the 1.1 ranked Tour du Doubs in France, writes Shane Stokes.
The Ag2R Prévoyance rider was in a breakaway group with fellow Irishman and team-mate Mark Scanlon towards to the end of the hilly 194-kilometre race, then attacked on the final climb to go clear.
Deignan crested the summit alone and race on to the finish, crossing the line one minute 34 seconds ahead of Yann Pivois (Jean Floc'h).
Scanlon finished a further two seconds back in third.
Stage 2: (Challans to Les Essarts, 181.5km): 1 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quickstep, 3hrs 51mins 31secs, 2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole, 3 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto, 4 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis, Le Credit Par Telephone, 5 Luciano Pagliarini (Bra) Liquigas-Bianchi, 6 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Fassa Bortolo, 7 Peter Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner, 8 Jerome Pineau (Fra) Bouygues Telecom, 9 Baden Cooke (Aus) Francaise Des Jeux, 10 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros-Wurth, 11 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Saunier Duval-Prodir, 12 Robert Hunter (Rsa) Phonak Hearing Systems, 13 Inaki Isasi (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi, 14 Yuriy Krivtsov (Ukr) Ag2r-Prevoyance, 15 Angelo Furlan (Ita) Domina Vacanze, 16 Maxim Iglinski (Kaz) Domina Vacanze, 17 Sebastien Hinault (Fra) Credit Agricole, 18 Anthony Geslin (Fra) Bouygues Telecom, 19 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team, 20 Fred Rodriguez (USA) Davitamon-Lotto all at same time. Other: 63 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel at 5secs
Overall: 1 David Zabriskie (USA) Team CSC 4hrs 12mins 27secs, 2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel at 0:02, 3 Laszlo Bodrogi (Hun) Credit Agricole at 0:47, 4 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team at 0:53, 5 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel at 0:57, 6 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems at 1:02, 7 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo at same time, 8 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 1:03, 9 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC at 1:04, 10 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne at 1:05, 11 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) Liberty Seguros-Wurth at 1:06, 12 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC at 1:07, 13 Jose Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems at 1:12, 14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner at 1:13, 15 Michael Rich (Ger) Gerolsteiner at same time, 16 Jose Luis Rubiera (Spa) Discovery Channel at 1:16, 17 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Discovery Channel at 1:18, 18 Robert Hunter (Rsa) Phonak Hearing Systems at 1:19, 19 Bradley McGee (Aus) Francaise Des Jeux at same time, 20 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quickstep at 1:24.
