Vande Velde, Wiggins in the hunt for overall

Team Garmin-Slipstream’s GC contenders Christian Vande Velde and Bradley Wiggins showed everyone what they are capable of today on the longest stage of this year’s Tour de France — staying with and at times leading the elite group of overall contenders on the way to the mountain-top finish, including an attack by Wiggins at 1km to go.

Bradley Wiggins, Christian Vande Velde - Tour de France 2009, stage 7

Wiggins leads Vande Velde on the final climb

“I’m really happy, I felt really good,” said Vande Velde to Cyclingnews. “I definitely had to dig deep in the end, and there was quite a headwind. I think tomorrow is going to be hard again, so now it’s a matter of recovering. I can’t complain about my placing on the overall. I’m in the top ten, so that’s all good.”

Wiggins’ performance is for many a revelation, as featured recently. But don’t tell that to Wiggo.

“I’ve been saying all along that I knew I had the physical capabilities to go well here,” said Wiggins to Cyclingnews. “I proved in the prologue I had the climbing legs. I’ve ridden a near perfect race so far, except for that one day [stage three] when we got caught with our pants down.

Bradley Wiggins - Tour de France 2009, stage 7

David Zabriskie - Tour de France 2009, stage 7 Team Garmin-Slipstream, stage 7 results
1. Brice Feillu 6h11.31
12. Bradley Wiggins +3.47
20. Christian Vande Velde
50. David Zabriskie +6.14
68. Martijn Maaskant +9.16
78. Ryder Hesjedal +11.03
152. Danny Pate +28.29
155. Tyler Farrar
156. Julian Dean
163. David Millar

Team Garmin-Slipstream, GC results
1. Rinaldo Nocentini 25h44.32
5. Bradley Wiggins +0.46
8. Christian Vande Velde +1.24
35. David Zabriskie +5.18
59. Ryder Hesjedal +10.20
84. Martijn Maaskant +15.31
110. David Millar +27.18
136. Julian Dean +31.16
165. Tyler Farrar +41.01
168. Danny Pate +44.11

Christian Vande Velde - Tour de France 2009, stage 7


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This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Garmin, Garmin Web Site, Home Page, Race Reports and tagged with , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • kb

    Love the confidence – and you know it’s gotta be a huge boost to Christian to have a strong teammate riding along in the select group. Well done sirs. It’s really cool to see the Argyle boys shaping up as the main challengers to Astana’s hegemony (and who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall in their HQ at dinnertime, eh?). Looking forward to more attacks in the days to come.

  • Sammy

    Look at DZ climb! Could he be a GC contendor, he’s only five minutes back.

  • Jeff McConnell

    Fantastic ride by everyone today. It was nice to see so much orange and blue at the front of the peleton today.

  • Steve

    CVV and Wiggs, way to Rock It! You guys looked as strong as anybody up there in the select group. Dave Z, great ride as well, way to deliver them right where they needed to be. Team moral must be sky high right now. Keep working hard for eachother.

  • Paul

    Way to go Ryder! great support for your team!

  • phil

    Wiggins-You’re the man,Am i dreaming a Brit,on one of the toughest mountain stages cutting it with Evans,Armstrong en all,and your’e a time-trialer!!!,you showed what a talent you are,Cancellera had the yellow,but couldn’t handle it.You made a lot of Brits proud today as did David yesterday.I think you can challenge all the way to Paris.