- By Matthew Beaudin
- Published 10 mins ago
ANNONAY, France (VN) — Another Garmin-Sharp rider fell to the pavement on Friday — a familiar sight for the American squad at this year’s Tour de France. But this time, it was a victorious, exhausted David Millar, who, in one agonizing sprint, salvaged July for an American team that came into the Tour with lofty dreams but was grounded by crashes.
“It’s massive. It’s been a horrific Tour for us so far,” Millar said, just after sprinting Frenchman Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r La Mondiale) for the win on stage 12, into Annonay. “I really wanted to do something… prove that we’re still here and show that Garmin-Sharp are one of the best cycling teams in the world.”
Garmin’s director, Allan Peiper, never put his head down. He pledged to fight very time journalists asked him what the team’s plan would be since losing Ryder Hesjedal and Tom Danielson a week ago today. He was good to his word.
“We’re going to make the best of it until the end of the race, and that’s it,” he told VeloNews earlier this week. “Other teams deal with mishaps and broken dreams. And we’ll get out there and fight until the end and see if we can knock off a stage.”
He’s right. Other teams suffer crashes, but everyone would agree that Garmin has endured a savage Tour de France.
Tyler Farrar couldn’t get off a clean sprint early in this Tour, crashing with regularity. At one point Farrar even tried to board the Argos-Shimano bus to confront Tom Veelers, who he felt had caused a crash. Team staff restrained him.
Tom Danielson — ninth last year at the Tour — crashed on stage 3 into Boulogne-sur-Mer, and finished well off the back, as he nursed a separated shoulder to the line. Christian Vande Velde also crashed that day, and chased in vain to regain contact with the group to try to limit his damages. He lost more than two minutes, ending his GC hopes as well.
And that was all before the “Metz Massacre,” a spectacular crash on stage 6
To read the whole story, visit here: http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/07/news/garmins-perseverance-proves-peiper-right_229625
