Jodie Batchelor
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.
Tour de France - Stage 3 (in review)
- By Jodie Batchelor
- Published 08-Jul-08
Interesting that last night that the break away stayed away, this is quite unusual for the first week of the Tour and on a flat stage. Normally the sprinters teams time the catch perfectly to set up the stage win for their rider. I think the conditions with the strong winds and rain may have impacted the chase. Plus it also seemed that some teams did not want to do turns on the front, which wore some riders out, and the catch stayed out there.
Great news for French cycling though with there riders in the break yesterday and today a stage win (Samuel Dumoulin) and yellow jersey (Romain Feillu).
There were also good signs for Robbie McEwen as he was in the chasing group and out-sprinted other green jersey contenders (Zabel, and Hushovd).
There is no panic for the GC riders though as those with the time advantage now would be expected to lose it as soon as the road starts going up - perhaps even after the ITT tonight. Cadel lost no time to other GC riders (Valverde, Sastre, Cunego and Kirchen) however some riders have been losing time - Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott) and Russian Denis Menchov (Rabobank)
As the saying goes - the first week is not about winning the tour - its about not losing it!
