The peloton rode through three countries on the 160km Stage 16 between Martigny and Bourg-Saint-Maurice of this year’s Tour.
At the first climb Col du Grand Saint Bernard a break away of 21 riders jumped ahead included Vladimir Karpets (Katusha), Heinrich Haussler (Cervelo), KOM-leader Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas), Astarloza, Fabian Cancellara and Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) and others with Karpets being the the highest placed GC rider to Contador at 6 minutes.
Pellizotti and Karpets broke away from the group with Pellizotti collecting KOM points along the route tightening his grip on the KOM jersey.
On the climb of Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard Saxo-Bank set up Andy and Frank Schleck to attack the yellow jersey. Saxo-Bank set a high pace splitting the group of favourites including Armstrong and Evans. But Contador, Kloden, Wiggins (Garmin) and Nibali (Liquigas) stayed with them. The Saxo-Bank group had a gap of 40 seconds on Armstrong’s group. The 37r old, 7 time Tour Champion Lance Armstrong bridged the gap by himself and joined him team mates.
It was a long, twisting descent to the finish with many tight hairpin turns Voigt crashed, over an unexpected bump in the road, and went down hard, going to hositpal.
Dave Zabriskie (Garmin) led the descent for much of the time, working to maintain the gaps opened up to Evans and initially Carlos Sastre (Cervelo) in hopes of eliminating their chances in the overall and protecting the position of Wiggins in third place at 1:47 behind Contador.
In the closing kilometers Astarloza rode with Pellizotti, Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Silence-Lotto) and Amael Moinard (Cofidis) while another group of four chased them. Asterloza (Euskatel) escaped from the group there was little or no reaction and the Spanish rider held his advantage of six seconds all the way to the line.
"Yeah, I’d sort of been left out by the acceleration of the group, caught by surprise and we had Alberto and Andreas there." Amrmstrong said at the end of the stage. "The Petit Saint-Bernard isn?t that steep so you have to find the moment. When it’s kind of rolling along at 6% you have to wait until it’s at 7 or 8% before you can make an acceleration, otherwise all the other guys follow you. So I was just looking for a bit of steep road."
Jens Voigt has suffered a fracture of the right cheekbone and a concussion. For now he is staying at the hospital for further observation. "I think I was very lucky not getting severely hurt from today’s crash. Now I hope that you can focus on the race and I wish you all good luck with the hard stage tomorrow". Voigt said whilst tin hospital.
Top Ten Results
1 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) Euskaltel – Euskadi 4:14:20
2 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fran?aise des Jeux 0:00:06
3 Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) BBOX Bouygues Telecom
4 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale
5 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Silence – Lotto
6 Ama?l Moinard (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
7 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 0:00:11
8 St?phane Goubert (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
9 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Agritubel 0:00:59
10 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana
General Classification after Stage 16
1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 67:33:15
2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 0:01:37
3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin – Slipstream 0:01:46
4 Andreas Kl?den (Ger) Astana 0:02:17
5 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:02:26
6 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 0:02:51
7 Christophe Le Mevel (Fra) Fran?aise des Jeux 0:03:09
8 Fr?nk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:03:25
9 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 0:03:52
10 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin – Slipstream 0:03:59
