Tour de France: Much of the Tour's enduring appeal lies in the fact that the demands the race makes on its participants, and the way the cyclists react to those demands, frequently defy all common sense.
That ethos is epitomised by Tyler Hamilton. The main victim of the melee in Meaux on Sunday, he rode yesterday's 125-mile, five-hour stage with a broken collarbone.
The little American is always impassive on his bike, and yesterday was no exception, despite the constant jarring of the hairline fracture. He was nursed through by two team-mates and managed to avoid two more pile-ups. He finished 100th behind Australia's second stage winner in three days, Baden Cooke, and remains eighth overall.
"This morning, I didn't think I'd last 10 kilometres," he said. "Fortunately the way the race went was perfect for me. If it had gone fast at the start, I'd have been in trouble, but it started easy. I felt a dull ache all day long."
Hamilton's current aim is to get as far as Wednesday's team time-trial to assist Carlos Sastre, who will take over as leader, but his manager, Bjarne Riis, is speculating about getting him to the mountains at the weekend.
Chutes vary from farcical to ferocious, however, and the young Frenchman Lilian Jegou provided some light relief when he got his handlebars tangled up in a television cable early on in his day-long escape with his compatriot Frederic Finot. He suffered no ill effects and the pair enjoyed an 11-minute advantage until the sprinters' teams launched the chase.
Clad in the garish jersey of the jeweller Jean Delatour, Finot still looked the likely winner with 12 miles remaining, when he had four minutes in hand, but on the lengthy drag which preceded the final headlong descent into the Moselle valley he weakened visibly, his head nodding, constantly changing position on his bike, and an agonising two miles from the line Finot was fini.
Yesterday, the Tour left the Ile de France for France profonde, and the signs are that the centenarian will be royally welcomed. Each village along the route seemed to be vying to outdo its neighbour in decorations.
The Belgian border is a stone's throw away, but the nation that boasted Eddy Merckx is in the cycling doldrums, with a mere eight starters in this Tour, the best of whom was 35th yesterday.
That decline is mirrored by the rise of Australia. This morning, three of the Tour's four jerseys are on Antipodean shoulders: Bradley McGee holds yellow, Robbie McEwen the green points jersey, and Cooke the white of best young rider. Moreover, their best hope for a high overall placing, the climber Cadel Evans, is not even at the Tour, having broken his collarbone twice this season.
Cooke is what the French call a casse-cou, or breakneck, and is frequently accused of banditry in the finish sprint. Yesterday, he denied causing the pile-up in Meaux. "I wasn't anywhere near it, but if anything happens in a sprint, everyone throws their hands up and blames me."
As the team time-trial looms tomorrow, McEwen will feel today is his last chance to take yellow through the time bonuses on offer at the finish, and another spectacular sprint is likely.
Guardian Service
STAGE TWO (204.5 km, La Ferte-sous-Jouarre to Sedan): Leading placings: 1. B Cooke (Aus) FDJeux.com 5 hours 6 minutes 33 seconds 2. J-P Nazon (Fra) Jean Delatour 3. J Kirsipuu (Est) AG2R 4. E Zabel (Ger) Team Telekom 5. T Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole 6. R McEwen (Aus) Lotto 7. P Bettini (Ita) Quick Step 8. S O'Grady (Aus) Credit Agricole 9. F Rodriguez (US) Vini Caldirola 10. M Artetxe (Spa) Euskaltel all same time.
OVERALL: 1. B McGee (Aus) FDJeux.com 8:58:28 2. D Millar (Brit) Cofidis 4 sec 3. Cooke same time 4. H Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel 6 sec 5. J Ullrich (Ger) Team Bianchi 6. Nazon both same time 7. V Hugo Pena (Col) US Postal Service 10 sec 8. T Hamilton (US) Team CSC 9. A Flickinger (Fra) AG2R both same time 10. L Armstrong (US) US Postal Service 11.
TODAY: Stage Three: Charleville Mezieres - Saint Dizier, 167 km.
