Читать книгу Etape. The untold stories of the Tour de France’s defining stages онлайн

100 страница из 104

The helicopter shots show the town of Aubenas – perched on a rocky outcrop, as the brochure described, surrounded by verdant slopes. The village looks cramped, old, the roofs of the buildings forming a terracotta patchwork. The cameras switch to an alternative angle on the race, at the rear of the peloton, the business end; it shows riders being spat out the back, including a few Rabobanks, their work done.

The bunch snakes up the climb. Fabian Cancellara is another big name dropped. Wiggins moves up the outside. Armstrong is lurking there, ominous. Off the back go his team-mate, Popovych, then Stuart O’Grady, then the King of the Mountains, Franco Pellizotti. Where’s Cavendish?

‘Bernie Eisel got me up to second in the bunch coming into the climb,’ says Cavendish. ‘I just sat there and counted; counted down the kilometres. It was Tony Martin at the front; he sat in front of me and rode me up. The first three and a half, four kilometres, I was riding as though that was the summit there. I remembered what Riis had told me: that if I could get past the first 4k I could hang on up the rest of the climb. And we came to this town, and I could hear on the radio there were guys getting dropped. I heard that [Heinrich] Haussler [another strong sprinter, second to Cavendish at Milan–San Remo] was dropped.