The beauty of a clean sprint finish

Today we were treated to one of the most beautiful displays in sport, a clean sprint finish. The previous three days of the tour were dreamed up by the ASO in order to add suspense, but at what cost? The cost was the pure instantly of a group sprint to the line and today we were reminded of that.

Another factor that made today's sprint incredible was the winner was not inevitable. Over the past two seasons when it came down to a sprint finish we all knew what was about to happen. The HtC/Columbia/High Road lead-out train would get on the front of the race and deliver the monster from the Isle of Man to the line. It would game over once Cav's made his jump from Renshaw's wheel.

Today things changed, the HtC train was intact with 2km to go, three strong men driving to pace setting up their leader (he does wear 11). And then something happened; a bunch of other teams got involved. With 1.5km to go Lampre jumped to the right, HtC tried to tact onto the wheel. Then all the teams starting getting involved. Sky thought they had a chance at a much needed win (screw Rupert Murdoch and his empire), Thor and company started trying to find position to gobble up more points toward his the green jersey defense, not to mention Garmin threw the kitchen sink at the field using all of Farrar's lead-out as sprinters.

For a moment Thor and Cavs bumped as their lead-out men gave a last effort. Petacchi jumped, McEwen followed and it was clear Cav's couldn't match their monster acceleration. Petacchi crossed the line and blew a kiss to the sky.

It was everything a sprint should be, chaotic, tense and unpredictable. We should have more of these in the coming days and I look forward to it. Especially since the result is uncertain now that is no longer a king of the sprints.

Photo credit © Roberto Bettini