With nearly the halfway point on this year's 100th edition of the Tour de France, we've seen it all, whether it's crashes, exciting sprint races to the finish and even some wonderful mountain climbing. The result is outstanding and the tour can't be any better.
The tour started for 3 exciting days on the Island of Corsica, including a sprint win by Marcel Kittel and a win by Australian Simon Gerrans. Then a time-trial was featured in which Orica-Green Edge won in Nice. The tour then traveled along the Mediterranean and ends up with 2 days in the Pyrenees. The Sky team was able to do their job on Stage 8 (which finished on the summit of Ax-3 Domaines), giving Chris Froome the Maillot Joure. Stage 9, which also took place on the Pyrennes featured 5 mountain climbs (4 of them Category 1) and gives Dan Martin a win. Yesterday's rest day allowed travel to the Brittany region of France which took place today, and Kittel won his 2nd stage of the tour at Saint-Melo.
Tomorrow, will feature the 1st of 2 individual time-trials and then a 3-day trip across France to Lyon. On Sunday, it will be Bastille Day and will feature a climb on Mont Ventoux, which will definitely shake up the standings before the riders reach the Alps in the middle of next week.
16 riders on this year's tour have already withdrawn due to crashes or finishes outside the time limit, including Americans Christian Vande Velde and Ted King. Right now, Chris Froome leads the overall time by 1 minute, 25 seconds over Alejandro Valverde and Bauke Mollema by 1:44. Other contenders include Alberto Contador who is 6th overall, Andy Schleck 15th and Cadel Evans 16th. In the Points classification, Peter Sagan is dominating, leading 2nd-place Andre Greipel by 83 points. Pierre Rolland has performed well so far in the King of the Mountains category, winning many climbs and is the leader by 16 points over Froome. Nairo Quintana impressed so well in Stage 9 and is leading the White Jersey (Youth) category by 1:23 over Michal Kwaitkowski.
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