Tour De France 2006

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 12

- The stage today has 4 climbs of moderate difficulty, and 2 intermediate sprints. There is an overall drop in altitude of about 500m as the begin to ride from the Pyrenees to the Alps.
- This stage started out with a few decent sized escapes during the first 100 km. Most were brought back easily.
- In the 95km 4 riders escaped [Oscar Freire (Spain - Rabobank); Yaroslav Popovych (Ukraine - Discovery Channel); Christophe Le Mevel (France - Credit Agricole); Alessandro Ballan (Italy - Lampre-Fondital)]
- 40 km after the escape, they lead by 4 minutes
- This escape has a good chance of doing very well. With the closest threat Popovych at 9 minutes behind the leader Landis in the GC and 4 different teams represented, it is hard to find a team that wants to lead the peloton in the hard work of reeling them in.
- During the last 10km in the stage, the group of 4 was still leading, they each attached the others in order to get a lead and gain stage honors.
- Papovych attacks with 3 km to go. He is success in breaking away from his escapee group. He takes the stage and has an average of 46.15 km per hour over 211.5km.
- The overall leaders remain the same after today's stage, and Papovych moved in to 10th and gained over 4 minutes on Landis.