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

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The stage gets off to a tough start: the 2.6km Côte de Culin after 6.5km, the first of two category-four ranked climbs. An obvious platform for an early break. Several riders attack, and a group of ten goes clear up the climb, with two more riders joining over the top. Five more try to get across, including perennial contender Cadel Evans, but when the dust settles, just 16km into the stage, the group is eleven-strong. Nine more bridge the gap over the following fifteen, rolling kilometres. The break includes some big hitters: Evans, David Millar, David Arroyo, Luis León Sánchez, Carlos Barredo. And Kim Kirchen.

Kim Kirchen’s presence is strange. Sitting in the peloton, Cavendish wonders why Kirchen, his team-mate, has joined the break. Cavendish had said in the morning, in front of everybody in the team meeting in the bus, that he fancied this stage, and thought he could win it. ‘But I need you guys,’ he told them. ‘I need you to help me just like you helped me over the Cipressa and Poggio.’