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Five star Kirsipuu's win for Ag2r lifts French spiritsPosted: Thursday July 25, 2002 7:31 AMEdging ahead from the five-man move which had kept a crash-damaged peloton on its toes, Ag2r’s Jaan Kirsipuu gave the host country something to celebrate at last, reports Cycling Weekly magazine. A FAST and furious stage across the plains of Picardy and Normandy ’s rolling countryside ended with Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (ONCE) maintaining his slender lead overall, and the unusual sight of sprinter Jaan Kirsipuu (Ag2r) taking a stage from a small break. Kirsipuu’s third Tour stage win since 1999 represented a major comeback for the Estonian. A 60kph downhill training accident in mid-March, when a car driver turned in front of him, seriously damaged ligaments in his knee and ankle and almost led him to quit cycling altogether. After a month off the bike, Ag2r workhorse Kirsipuu came to the Tour under immense pressure given his team’s lack of results while he was injured, and this year’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne winner had barely been seen in the bunch sprints so far, having opted for a different strategy.
One of two riders to hold the yellow jersey in 1999 -- the other being Lance Armstrong (US Postal) -- the veteran pro succeeded in forming part of a five-up break that formed shortly after the feed on stage five, with 85 kilometers left to race. More impressively, he managed to convince former Belgian national champion Ludo Dierckxsens (Lampre), Italian Stefano Casagranda (Alessio), Denmark’s Michael Sandstöd (CSC) and the Frenchman Christophe Edaleine (Jean Delatour) that he would be no more dangerous than the rest come the finale. Later, they seriously regretted having believed him. ONCE and allies Telekom -- who had worked hard to pull back a seven-man move involving Vjatcheslav Ekimov, and then a 17-man attack containing another US Postal rider, Floyd Landis -- were finally content to leave the five to get on with it. As the race moved past vast wheat fields and down leafy Normandy lanes, the quintet built up a five-minute lead that saw Edaleine become the third provisional maillot jaune of the stage -- both Ekimov and Landis had briefly been virtual leaders when their breaks went clear in the first two hours. ONCE, back in their familiar pink Tour kit after taking hold of the yellow jersey, handed over control of the peloton to the sprinters’ squads for the final pursuit. Lotto,FdJeux.com and Mapei -- now working for Oscar Freire after Tom Steels became the first rider of the 2002 to abandon, with stomach problems -- laid down a ferocious pace. But a nasty pile-up towards the back of the peloton shortly before the race passed through Quincampoix shattered their concentration. The crash also left almost two dozen riders, among them Britain’s David Millar (Cofidis), on the deck. Millar was unscathed, but the worst crash of the Tour so far saw Lampre’s Marco Pinotti suffer serious facial injuries, while Belgian Rik Verbrugghe (Lotto-Adecco), a stage winner last year, crossed the line last with a fractured collarbone. Others in trouble included Tyler Hamilton (CSC) and Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Roberto Laiseka, the Basque stage winner at Luz-Ardiden last year. But the crash proved to be the salvation of Kirsipuu and company. “I thought we could make it with about 25 kilometers to go, but it was only when we caught sight of the line that I knew one of us was going to win,” he revealed. Feeling the heat It was a blistering finale, with Kirsipuu riding down five different attacks, the first from Dierckxsens, who was determined to celebrate Flanders’ national holiday with a victory, then Edaleine and Casagranda, and finally Sandstod on the long avenue by the Seine leading to the finish. Kirsipuu came past the Danish national champion with his head bowed and his face a rictus of pain, squeezing past on the line to win by a wheel. “I had nothing left, but I had to win,” the Estonian insisted as the peloton roared home 33 seconds later. Curiously enough, Kirsipuu’s last Tour victory had been at Strasbourg in 2001, where the race’s previous stage winner had been a Briton, Michael Wright, in 1967. In Rouen, the previous stage winner had been another Englishman, Chris Boardman, in the 1997 Tour prologue. History has an odd way of repeating itself, especially in the Tour. WHAT IT MEANT THE first of four transition stages between the team time trial and the first long individual race against the clock on Monday was fast and furious as several teams tried to shake ONCE’s grip on the maillot jaune. U.S. Postal’s two early attacks with Vjatcheslav Ekimov and Floyd Landis were policed by the Spanish team’s rouleur Mikel Pradera and a brief echelon inspired by Laurent Jalabert (CSC) also spluttered out after barely five kilometers. ONCE are not the only ones aware that time is running out before Lance Armstrong takes the race by the scruff of the neck. Jaan Kirsipuu’s victory was the first for a French team in this year’s Tour and finally gives the home side something to celebrate, albeit thanks to a foreigner. The last team to get a wild card selection, Ag2r’s win fully justifies the small squad’s presence on the race. It also acts as a reminder to other French teams that they need to get at least one stage victory or make some powerful attacks to get a chance of a berth next year. While the sprinters’ teams are determined to make the most of a succession of flat early stages, those squads without a sprinter -- and particularly the French ones -- will continue to fire their riders up the road at the slightest opportunity. Nor will they have forgotten that Sunday is Bastille Day, which guarantees great publicity for a local winner. Sparks are surely going to fly.
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