Tonight sees the final stage of the 2009 Tour de France, which finishes as always in Paris. Overall I’ve found the 2009 tour to be enjoyable, I think that the organisers came up with an interesting route. Monaco was a great place for the opening time trial, Annecy was also a good time trial setting (especially for a Rohmer fan), the stage finish in Barcelona (nasty weather though), the exciting mountain finish in Andorra, some spectacular descents in the Alps and of course the famous Mont Ventoux last night.
Of course the tour has been heavily dominated by to riders, both backed by strong support from their teams. The tour leader Alberto Contador and the incredibly strong Astana team with the likes of Armstrong and Kloden (and Leipheimer until his early withdrawal), but also there is Mark Cavendish who has been incredibly dominant in the sprints with numerous stage wins. His team (Columbia) did a great hob of getting him into the best position each time, especially his lead out man Mark Renshaw. Thor Hushovd has kept things interesting by aggressively going for points to get ahead of Cavendish for the green jersey, there should be enough points up for grabs for them to fight it out tonight.
It’s hard not to wonder what we might have seen if Contador and Armstrong had have gone head to head rather than being team mates, but it looks like we’ll get that next year. Also strong this year was their team mate Kloden, the Schleck brothers and I was impressed by the Liquigas team who had a great team time trial and have the King of the Mountains (Pellizotti) plus two top ten finshers (Nibali, Kreuziger). The other big standout was Bradley Wiggins who put in a great effort to threaten the other big names, and was well supported by Vande Velde.
A number of big names struggled to make an impact, of course the focus was on Cadel Evans here in Australia, but also last year’s winner Carols Sastre, and Giro d’Italia winner Denis Menchov also failed to finish high in the GC.
One big difference this year from recent years is the lack of a drug scandal, which is something of a relief for the follower of the tour, however given the events of recent years you can’t help but wonder whether the riders are clean or the cheats are once again gaining the upper hand over the testers.
Anyway, even with the GC decided firmly in favour of Contador there is still plenty of interest tonight, can Cavendish grab yet another stage win, or can Hushovd gain the upper hand to keep the green jersey. On top of that there’s the usual spectacular backgroung of Paris.