Stage 9-208 km
Issoire to Saint-Flour
Sanchez has won today’s stage. Without doubt he celebrates tonight, perhaps with a frothy bottle of Cava, a hearty Spanish steak and deep sleep, eschewing worry of team alarms on the morning of a rest day. Sanchez has won, but in the wake of every triumph, there are strong and noble men left in ditches and tangled in barbed wire. Today The Heroes lament for these men.
On the eve a rest day our Stage Nine sketchbooks are full of charcoal renderings of the following riders no longer participating in this year’s tour –they are best read aloud in a quiet place:
207, Wouter Poels
61, Alexandre Vinokourov
59, David Zabriskie
44, Juan Manuel Garate
39, Frederik Willems
31, Jurgen Van Den Broeck
26, Amets Txurruka
86, Benat Intxausti
72, Christopher Horner
136, Rémi Pauriol
122, Tom Boonen
111, Bradley Wiggins
87, Vasil Kiryienka
28, Ivan Velasco
186, Christopher Kern
71, Janez Brajkovic
37, Jurgen Van De Walle