Jodie is the current Victorian Vets Criterium and Road champion in her age group. She has been racing for several years now and likes any event that involves sprinting and not too many hills. She initially used cycling as an important part of her rehabilitation from a mountaineering accident in New Zealand. She then got into racing as a replacement for martial arts in which she represented Australia and won Gold, Silver & Bronze medals in the Martial Arts World Games in 2000. 95th Tour de France
Location: France
UCI Classification: Grand Tour
Dates: 5-27 July, 2008
Starting field: 180 riders, 20 teams
Stage 14 - Saturday, July 19: Nîmes - Digne les Bains, 194.5km
Stage 14 was an incredibly fast stage that averaged over 46km/h, which is surprising given the mainly uphill profile of the race. The peloton covered 52km in the first hour. A large group of 20 riders broke away at the 5km mark. The peloton drew them back in, but four of the breakaway group attacked and got away for most of the stage. The last remnant of the four-man group was caught at the 10km to go mark. Despite a final solo effort by Sylvain Chavanel from Cofidis, the peloton formed to finish the stage together. However, the final sprint was mainly uphill which saw many of the pure sprinters fall behind. Oscar Freire Gomez from Rabobank won the final sprint. Cadel finished with peloton to retain the yellow jersey for another day. A full report is here.
Photos of Cadel: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4
Main results:
1 Oscar Freire Gomez (Spa) Rabobank 4.13.08 (46.102 km/h)
2 Leonardo Duque (Col) Cofidis - Le Crédit par Téléphone
3 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram
...
21 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30
...
28 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto
...
32 Bernhard Kohl (Aut) Gerolsteiner
...
34 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank
...
64 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank
...
(158 riders started, 157 finished)
Main GC results after stage 14:
1 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 59.01.55
2 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank 0.01
3 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30 0.38
4 Bernhard Kohl (Aut) Gerolsteiner 0.46
5 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0.57
...
Next Stage
Stage 15: Embrun - Prato Nevoso, 183km. The first of the big Alp stages takes the race over the cat.HC climb Col Agnel and finishes at the top of cat.1 climb Prato Nevoso. Profile.
Arthurs Creek Celebrates
Some photos of how the locals are celebrating Cadel's success: link.
Reproduced with permission from Geoff Schmidt who is unashamedly biased towards following Cadel Evans.