Life around Tour de France – Stage 13
Sports Travel / Tourism
This is a guest post by Mr.Q, a professional quizmaster and an ardent follower of Tour de France
The city where Francois Bartholdi was born does indeed have a special place for him. For not only is a square named after him along with a statue but also the pride of place in the town’s main square main is a huge work by him of General Rapp, an Officer in Napolean’s army.
It was later on when he designed the Statue of Liberty that he became an international name to contend with. Apart from these, a lot of his work is on display at the Bartholdi Museum in the city which contains quite a lot of personal work, as most of it is donated by his wife to the city.
It’s a town which is very near the German border & over the last two centuries has changed hands between the two countries many a times, thus leaving the influences in the unique styling of the buildings.
Colmar is often most famous for being the main wine producing city in the Alsac region of the country. The variety of them on sale is bound to leave any wine lover spell bound. But more than all these, we discovered in the old town a beautiful set of canals with boats on them giving rides to tourists, which has given this city the name of “Venice of France!!” Though they do take you around, the boat master does not sing, unlike Venice!!
In our travels so far, we have met many a local people in our endeavor to get a better sense of the towns & the places we are visiting. Most of the times the reaction we keep drawing from them is of amazement, on why are we Indians following the Tour??? So much so that now we are used to this reaction and are comfortable with their queries. But what took the cake was when we met Micheal, a hard core TdF fan who has been following the sport for the last 25 years, for he really wanted to know if we knew the Tour!! And for the next 60 minutes, it was him asking me questions and me answering them, something of a change for me I guess!! Me thinks, he was out to prove that we were just tourists passing by till he started getting some serious answers!!
The 13th Stage of the Tour de France started off in Vittel & ended at Colmar a distance of 200 kms, with the course running through the towns of Xertigny, Gerardmer, Munster, Luttenbach & Lautenbach.
Before the race, the organisers went back on their decision to do away with the radios for the riders for this stage. Mounting criticism from the riders & teams along with the ICA (International Cycling Association), it was decided to race as normal with the radios.
Team Astana had a serious blow to its chances when Levi Leipheimer, the US rider, who was on 4th position woke up to severe pain in his wrist as a result of his fall yesterday. An X ray showed that he had double fracture in his wrist & so has had to drop out of the Tour for treatment. Both Contador & Armstrong have expressed their anguish at losing one of the strongest members. Levi in his tweet said “About to have surgery. They’re putting a screw in the scaphoid, traverse fracture. They’re taking good care of me here in France.”
The breakaway was successful once again with the peleton not being very interested in pulling them back, as the tour stage started in sunshine & just about 1/3 the stage it started to rain heavily. The temperature went down so fast, that Armstrong in his tweet mentioned that – “It was the coldest day on tour. Ever.”
For the record in Stage 13 – the winner was Haussler Heinrich of the Cervalo Test team. The individual standings at the top remain the same. The Yellow Jersey remains with Rinaldo Nocentini of the AG2R team from France. Alberto Contador & Lance Armstrong maintain their 2nd & 3rd spots, just 6 & 8 seconds respectively from the top. The Green Jersey changed hands once again wit Thor Hurshod of Norway regaining it from Mark Cavendish.
The Race tomorrow is from Colmar to Besancon a distance of 199 kms and this is the last stage on the flats, for the Alps are coming!!!
Au revoir!!…
Email : mrq@planningfactory.in
Photo credit : Priya Q