Australians chase maiden Tour stage win
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Time is fast running out for Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE to score their elusive first stage win in the Tour de France.
With two massive days in the Pyrenees behind them, the riders still in the race can start thinking of Sunday’s famed Paris finish.
Stage 18 heads due north, then the stage 19 time trial will most likely confirm Brad Wiggins’ title.
The traditional final stage will effectively be a procession until the field has eight laps of the Champs Elysees and the sprinters’ teams try to set up their fast men for one last high-speed finish.
Orica-GreenEDGE do not boast a time-trial specialist, so Friday and Sunday will be their last shots at capping an encouraging Tour debut.
Their No.1 goal in their Tour debut is a stage win.
They have managed every stage placing from second to seventh and featured heavily in the “grunt” work when it has come time to reel in breakaways on the flatter days.
Their sprinter Matt Goss was also closing on the green jersey classification until stage 12, when a controversial 30-point penalty ended his pursuit of category leader Peter Sagan.
Goss has not featured prominently since, with team director Matt White declaring he has had a couple of “off” days.
With the Olympics road race looming on July 28, Goss will aim to test his sprinting form.
Great Britain’s sprint ace Mark Cavendish is the early favourite for the Olympic road race and he also owns the Paris stage.
A win over Cavendish would be a massive boost for Goss ahead of the Games.
Stage 18 from Blagnac to Brive-la-Gaillarde has a category-three climb and three category fours along its 222.5km route.
It should be a sprinter’s stage, although stage 15 showed if the right break gets away and not enough teams are committed to the chase, then an opportunist might win.
After the Pyrenees, nine Australians were left in the Tour from the record 12 starters.
Matt Lloyd, Mark Renshaw and Brett Lancaster have abandoned.
Lancaster’s withdrawal could hurt Goss because the Olympic gold medallist was a key part of their sprint leadout train.
But White is confident they can cover his absence.
“We’ve been quite flexible – obviously Daryl Impey has been key to the leadouts, but we have options with Cookie (Baden Cooke) as well,” he said.
© AAP 2013
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The Crowd Says (6) | Page 1 of Comments
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July 20th 2012 @ 7:42am
liquorbox_ said | July 20th 2012 @ 7:42am | Report comment
GreeEDGE are coming second last as a team, only ahead of Argis-Shimano on the team standings. Most people dont care about the team standings, but it should be of some importance. There are guys in the team that have been very poor, I dont know if their training was focussed too much on the early season races and they are now over worked or what the problem is. On days when there is no sprint on why are guys like Gerrans and Albisinin falling off the peloton within 50m or a climb beginning? At the start of the season they were world beaters. They were never GC contenders, but should have a bit better results in the harder stages.
Is there a chance that GreenEDGE planned to have a cracker start to the season to ensure they were mentioned in the media?
My biggest dissapointment has been the lack of effort to get into breakaways, the best result for mine was Albasini winning a tour early in the season, this was as a result of a breakaway which he won (partly due to weather shortening the first stage while it was running). Why not use a proven formula???
I guess there is always next year, and the Vuelta, hopfully we will see some new faces in the team, if Cameron Meyer is going to be a future GC contender he better start getting a chance to learn ASAP, he will be against a hard gereration with Van Garderan, Rolland and Pinot. Not to mention waiting for Froome and Wiggins to fade.
July 20th 2012 @ 5:19pm
Andrew said | July 20th 2012 @ 5:19pm | Report comment
The team classification should be of zero importance to a team like GreenEDGE. There is no reason why any GreenEDGE riders should be aiming to finish anywhere other than the bottom of the GC. Doing so would waste energy over a three-week tour. Frankly I’m disappointed Argos-Shimano is beating them into last place. They should go for the opportunities when they’re there, but park themselves in the grupetto when they’re not.
But I can certainly agree with you about the inability of riders to get in the important breakaways. That’s been quite disappointing. I sense the team has over-committed to Goss a little bit. Hopefully the team will be desperate and have a number of fires in the oven tonight: one or two riders for the breakaway in case it stays away, and Goss for a bunch sprint in case the break gets reeled in.
Neil Stephens has said (on a backstage pass a couple of months ago) that Cam Meyer will race the Vuelta, so that should be interesting.
July 21st 2012 @ 12:15am
adamUK said | July 21st 2012 @ 12:15am | Report comment
Andrew – Well said in terms of first bit,
Why should GreenEDGE want general standing status? HTC Highroad never chased it and must have finished outside the top 10 teams about 3 years in a row. I have always thought GreenEDGE will grow to a HTC type team. Its just a shame Sagan and Grieple have just had the edge on Goss this time around. I think they will go all out on the final stage. I am a massive SKY and Cav fan, but wish Goss the best of luck either tonight or Stage 20. Think he and GE desrve it. (but then hopefully suffer at the Olympics..!)
July 20th 2012 @ 10:12am
nordster said | July 20th 2012 @ 10:12am | Report comment
They had a great start of the season …any greenedge fan who watched even just milan san remo should be happy with their debut year. I know i am!
Its of course easier to make an impact if u spread the effort around a bunch of priorities. They were smart to not throw too much at TDF first up…
July 20th 2012 @ 11:03am
liquorbox_ said | July 20th 2012 @ 11:03am | Report comment
They were great at the start, but if they want to be popular in Australia you have to do well in the race that Aussies know, the TDF. They won the other race that some Aussie might know of in the Tour Down Under but really if they want a home following they need to focus on the TDF.
How many regular people who are not cycling fans know of the Milan San Remo? or any other races? A few might be aware of the Tour of Italy, but that is probably about it.
I think the season as a whole has been quite good, but it has started to fall apart
July 22nd 2012 @ 6:58am
Dscaper said | July 22nd 2012 @ 6:58am | Report comment
As a Brit, I’ve alot of time for Orica-GreenEDGE.
When Sky first decided to visit the Tour, they had a horrible time – it was a disaster from start to finish. It’s only after 2 or 3 that teams will find their feet and hit a Tour running. Give ‘em a bit of time, and they’ll be fine.
But what I like best is their approach – the kind that only Aussies can bring. That same knife sharp wit and fun that has already shown itself. They’ve good principles, they have no history (which is a good thing), and they’ve certainly got a good set of riders to start working with. Most of all, I think Matt White is doing it for the right reasons.