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 5 (in review)
- By Jodie Batchelor
- Published 10-Jul-08
Stage 5 was won by a sprinter JUST! Team Columbia 's Mark Cavendish claimed his much-anticipated first victory in the Tour de France.
Again there was a break-away with French riders dominating. The break was only caught at the last moments of the stage, 1 rider (Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel)) attacked with about 1250m from the line but got caught in the last few seconds. As I watched I thought the sprint teams had misjudged it again.
The final few km's saw the peloton screaming through the corners chasing the break, which resulted in a few crashes including one rider crashing with a spectator (apparently the spectator got excited and move out onto the road).
Cavendish's team did a fantastic lead out. Although there have been no Australian's on the podium yet this year - there are some Australian riders that provided lead outs, this includes Mark French (Crédit Agricole) leading out Thor Hushovd and Adam Hansen (Team Columbia) the winner of today's stage Mark Cavendish.
The tour had another departure today - Barloworld's Mauricio Soler who was already struggling with injuries from an earlier crash, fell in the neutral zone and abandoned after only 12 kilometres.
Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) a GC contender also hit the deck and required some treatment to his knee but was able to continue and his team was able to bring him back to the peloton.
There was no change in the GC standings. Tonight's stage is 195.5km and the course has a few climbs (2 Cat 4 and 1 Cat 2) - this should see a bit of a shuffle in the GC standings.
