After a fairly benign start to this year’s Tour de France, the course has finally bared its fangs and revealed itself as the monster it can sometimes become. As if to underline just how tough the Tour is, the eighth stage claimed a number of big names, sadly, for those of us Down Under, including most of the remaining Australian contingent.

The stage from Le Grand Bornand to Tignes worked its way through mountains better suited to scenic photography than bike riding (from a non-cyclist perspective, that is), replete with gruelling, seemingly endless climbs interspersed with technical and often terrifying descents.

It was one of these descents that claimed Michael Rogers, leader of the T-Mobile team, who was in the “virtual” yellow jersey position. Rogers went down hard near the bottom of the Cormet de Roselend, closely followed by David Arroyo, who spectacularly flew over a railing into roadside trees and bushes.

'Rogers, who was in the “virtual” yellow jersey position, went down hard near the bottom of the Cormet de Roselend, closely followed by David Arroyo, who spectacularly flew over a railing into roadside trees and bushes'


Both riders rejoined the race but, despite showing staggering amounts of courage, Rogers was forced to retire with what was later revealed to be a dislocated shoulder. Television coverage showed the heart-wrenching scenes of the Aussie champion reduced to tears at the side of the road by the heady combination of pain and disappointment.

Barely 30 minutes earlier another Aussie stalwart, Stuart O’Grady, had to be rushed to hospital with suspected spinal injuries, after a similarly nasty crash. O’Grady was thankfully cleared of any damage to his spine, but was diagnosed with five fractured ribs, three fractures of his lower back, a fractured shoulder and a punctured lung – the irony being that he was apparently “lucky” to avoid serious spinal injury!

To round out a dismal day for the Aussies, sprint champion Robbie McEwen was eliminated after failing to finish the stage inside the allotted time. Reportedly still struggling physically after injuring himself in the fall in the first stage, McEwen showed fairly early that he was going to have a bad day as he lost touch with the peleton and continued to slip backwards, eventually finishing almost an hour and ten minutes behind the stage winner, Danish hill-climbing freak Michael Rasmussen.

Rasmussen exerted his dominance of the mountain stages of the Tour and looks almost unbeatable for his third consecutive King of the Mountain crown. More importantly, Rasmussen also took the yellow jersey and must now be considered a serious contender to win the general classification.

The day also allowed the real contenders to start to set themselves apart from the rest of the bunch. Christophe Moreau, Alejandro Valverde, Andrey Kashechkin, Cadel Evans, Iban Mayo, Frank Schleck, Alberto Contador and Yaroslav Popovych all managed to stay in touch. Even the injured Astana pair, pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov and team-mate Andreas Kloden, managed not to lose too much time and remain close enough to the lead bunch to remain an omnipresent threat. In all, 18 riders are within five minutes of Rasmussen.

After the rest day, the Tour has one more day in the Alps, including two hellish unclassified climbs over the Col de l’Iseran and the Col du Galibier should see the pretenders removed from the bunch before the few flat “easy” days to follow. It’s just starting to get interesting and there’s a long way to go – beauty!