[RowerB]

Yesterday saw the virtual elimination of Mayo as an overall contender. He crashed near the front of the peloton with a number of riders. Immediately the Euskaltel-Euskadi team dedicated themselves to trying to pace Mayo back to the main group.

News of Mayo’s fall quickly reached the main contenders and US Postal, T-Mobile and Phonak pushed the pace at the front in the style of a team time trial. (We’ve seen this before. In 1999 after the causeway debacle, Zulle was left 6 mins behind the peloton, which was frantically driven by US Postal and Once.)

Mike Smith, the stupid Eurosport commentator, couldn’t understand why the Euskaltels couldn’t catch the peloton. What a moron.

Mayo finished almost 4 mins down and with his team tired and despondent, he is likely to lose another 5 mins in today’s team time trial.

I’m disappointed that one of the main races favourites is out of contention before they’ve even seen a mountain.

I just needed that rant.

EDIT: The Euskaltels had a good team time trial and with the new system to limit losses of teams, they only lost 1min 20secs, so all is not lost. We’ll see what happens in the hills.