Everywhere in Tour, Aussies a link in the chain TOUR de FRANCE
I’M sitting in the press centre and it’s 3.30pm with 100km to go in Stage 4.
Pretty stock standard stage in that there is a small breakaway of four riders up the road.
They did have a lead of seven minutes, but now that’s back to two minutes and, yes, they will get caught.
It may be a recovery/calm day for most of the riders, but it is still very important for the sprinters, and their teams will reel in the breakaway in the final half-hour, (surprisingly only in the final kilometre).
This stage has very little road furniture and the final 4km is straightforward with only one roundabout and one tight corner. A rare occurrence in the modern Tour (and still there was a major crash).
It has given me time to reflect on how the European scene has changed and how much the Aussie influence has filtered into the event.
When I raced in Europe in the late 1970s, early ’80s, there were only a handful of Australians in the European peloton: DON ALLAN who rode a couple of Tours de France; CLYDE SEFTON who rode three Giros; GARY CLIVELY who finished top 10 in Vuelta; MICHAEL WILSON who finished top 10 in a Giro; and, GARRY WIGGINS, the father of English Tour de France winner Brad, and Danny Clark, who both concentrated on the track but were quite capable on the road when they decided to have a go.
In my final year in 1981, Phil Anderson made his TdF debut and he changed everything by taking the coveted Maillot Jaune in his first attempt.
Now we have the event live on Australian TV, thousands of Australian fans lining the road, and 11 Australians in the race.
And no matter which of the main contenders manages to stand on the top step of the podium in just over two weeks time, there will be an Aussie connection.
Of course if it’s Richie Porte then he becomes the second Antipodian to win the Tour but for the others the connection is less obvious and maybe a bit tenuous.
Chris Froome, for example, has an Aussie coach in Tim Kerrison.
Tom Dumoulin leads the Sunweb team and the sports director is former Olympic Gold medallist and Tour de France rider Luke Roberts.
Rigoberto Uran rides for a team co-sponsored by Aussie property developer Michael Drapac.
Romain Bardet rides a Factor bike of which former green jersey winner Baden Cooke is co-owner.
Vincenzo Nibali has an Aussie teammate, Heinrich Haussler, to help him survive Stage 9 to Roubaix.
Rory Sutherland, riding his first Tour, is the link to two other GC contenders.
The lanky 36-year-old veteran from Canberra rides for UAE Team Emirates and will be critical to help Irishman Dan Martin who has lost valuable time already and this is where we stretch it a bit. Rory rode for Movistar for three years and is close mates with Valverde.
Should the veteran Spaniard be in the mix, which is highly likely, and Dan Martin is out of the picture, also highly likely, don’t be surprised to see Rory lending a hand where possible.