Sastre confirms his spot in Yellow
July 26th, 2008 by Ricky Blayney
Well there is still a stage to go but with that kind of a ride against the clock, Carlos Sastre has comfortably done enough to ensure his place as the Tour de France 2008 Champion. I honestly didn’t believe the Tour would come down to a time-trial to decide things this year — there just wasn’t many TT kilometres in the Tour compared to other years — but that is exactly what happened as Evans looked to overturn a minute and a half deficit to win his and Australia’s first tour.
As it turned out, Spain won the day and when and if Sastre crosses the line in Paris tomorrow, then Spain will have won their third TdF in a row. Many many experts had penciled in Evans as the Tour winner going into today. Everyone believed he had the time-trialing ability to turn the gap around because Sastre just didn’t have the skills against the clock to hang onto his Yellow.
I had a feeling he could do it though, never underestimate what the Yellow jersey can do for a man when the chips are down. I was certainly backing him, afterall, Sastre deserved this Tour. He was the only man of the ‘big men’ that made a proper attack stick, on Alp du Huez, and on all other mountains when Evans, the Schlecks, Valverde, etc. made moves Sastre was able to stick in and be there come the end. He might have lost time in the first time-trial but he gradually brought it back in the mountains before striking on the final big climb of the Tour.
Now with an inspired ride in the time-trial he seals the Tour by over a minute in what for a while looked like a Tour that might produce a top five all within a minute of one another.
Evans and his camp will point to his crash on the first mountain stage of the Tour and what that maybe took out of him, but he always looked under pressure and that was never more in view when he was trying and failing to deal with the media successfully. He always just seemed too high strung and in the end his rivals, or could that be the CSC team wore him down just enough to ensure the victory went to one of their men?
Evans will have to be happy with second place while Sastre picks up his first Tour de France victory.
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