The Nations of the Tour de France
July 9th, 2008 by Ricky Blayney
180 Men entered this years Tour de France and currently through four and a half days we are down to 177. Only three men have pulled out so far, all through injury. Herve Duclos-Lassalle fractured his left-wrist in stage one and abandoned, Angel Gomez pulled out during stage three after a crash and early today Jan Mauricio Soler Hernandez of Barloworld, who won last years polka-dot jersey, retired due to an injury he has been carrying since day one.
After the jump, a list of the 177 riders left, per nation, in the Tour:
39: France
29: Spain
21: Italy
16: Germany
12: Belgium
10: The Netherlands
9: Australia
4: USA, Russia and Switzerland
3: Great Britain and Luxembourg
2: South Africa, Austria, Belarus, Noway, Sweden, Ukraine and Colombia
1: Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia
Point of Interest:
The race today finishes in Chateauroux which has only hosted one stage finish in the Tours history before. According to the letour.fr website, that happened back in 1998 during a 228.5km stage which is essentially the same course as being used today. The winner that day was Mario Cipollini ahead of Erik Zabel with Robbie McEwen in 6th and George Hincapie in 7th. Only Zabel, McEwen and Hincapie from that top ten that day are in the race today.
Cipollini of course made his cycling come back earlier this year but of course is not riding in the tour.
Abandoning
As mentioned above, Jan Mauricio Soler Hernandez of Barloworld today pulled out of the race after suffering an injury from a crash in stage 1. Soler finished off the back of the pack that day and others putting him well out of overall contention. I assumed he was hanging in there to have a crack at the King of the Mountains but the pain appears to have been too much for the Colombian who won the King of the Mountains in the 2007 Tour. He had been an aggressive little rider last year and I was looking to see what he could do in the big mountains this year. It is a shame that he wont be continuing.
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