Two weeks ago, this columnist wrote a post on Garmin-Sharp’s ambitions at the Tour and how Ryder Hesjedal was a good chance to become the first rider to do the Giro-Tour double (or indeed any Grand Tour double) since Marco Pantani in 1998.
Stage 6’s “Mayhem in Metz” has put an end to that.
Not only has Hesjedal lost 13 minutes, Tom Danielson abandoned, David Millar, Daniel Martin and Johan Vansummeren decked it heavily and Tyler Farrar is still hurting from a crash earlier in the week.
7 of their 9 riders finished in the group 13 minutes behind Peter Sagan (Dave Zabriskie’s daring crack at the stage win the only highlight).
Now they have to pin their hopes on stage wins. But that’s unlikely to happen as almost all of their riders are injured in some way.
They are now the last placed team overall, 35 minutes behind Sky Procycling and a good seven and a half minutes behind second-last Argos-Shimano.
To compound the issue, sporting director Jonathan Vaughters has been embroiled in the USADA vs. Lance Armstrong battle, and wasn’t present at the race last night.
This Tour de France is turning out to be wrong in every way that Garmin’s Giro d’Italia was right.
In late April, Andrew Talansky finished second to Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de Romandie.
In May, Garmin couldn’t put a foot wrong. They won the team time trial of the Giro then guided Ryder Hesjedal to his maiden Grand Tour win.
Hence why this calamity is such a shame. Garmin-Sharp came into this race with high aspirations and a chance of creating cycling history. Now they will most likely leave with a severely weakened roster and some soul searching to do.
Couple that with the fact that it is almost certain that Vaughters will have some backlash from the Armstrong doping case, this team could unravel quicker than HTC-Columbia did last year.
I really hope Dan Martin or one of their climbers can salvage something from this race. Garmin’s roster has such great depth and talent that it would be such a waste to have no results after 3 weeks. But I just can’t see it happening.
Many will say “well that’s just the Tour de France for you” but sporting director Allan Peiper has declared he’s never seen a team have so much luck in a week of Grand Tour racing – but all of it bad. Let’s hope they have it a bit better for the next two weeks.
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