Earlier in the year, during the Tour of Flanders, Zdenek Stybar had to take his false teeth out because they were rattling. “It’s difficult to say how the loss of my teeth affected my performance,” he said. He came ninth. Would he have done better with them in or would he have done worse?
A number of other strong teeth-in rides this year indicate that maybe he would have won. With a full dental detail he came second in E3 Harelbeke behind Geraint Thomas and second again in Paris-Roubaix behind John Degenkolb.
He also won Strade Bianche. In that race, he beat two of the most prolific runners-up in the entire peloton in the closing kilometres – Alejandro Valverde and Greg Van Avermaet. Perhaps that’s how he won stage six. He knew someone had to push Peter Sagan back into his traditional second place. Having done a quick tooth count, he figured he might as well be that person. For the record, Sagan has now finished second on a Tour stage on 14 occasions.
Tommy Voeckler’s first attack of the 2015 Tour de France
Old Tommy Many Faces spent 10 minutes trying to catch up with the break, failed, gave up and then settled back into the peloton. Don’t think it counts. The Tour only officially begins when Tommy gets in the break.
Other stuff
Vincenzo Nibali apparently chucked a bidon at Chris Froome. They sorted it out on the Astana bus afterwards. Case of mistaken identity or summat.
More significantly, Tony Martin broke his collarbone and will surely abandon the race. After Fabian Cancellara crashed out while in the overall lead, perhaps we’re going to have to start talking about some sort of curse.
Stage seven
Looks sprinty.
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