CSC-Saxo Bank did it again Wednesday at the Tour de France.

Stuart O’Grady, Fabian Cancellara and Vladimir Gustov rode a wicked pace at the front of the peloton on the Col du Galibier and the Col de la Croix de Fer to weed out the pretenders and spring their CSC-Saxo’s three heavyweights loose for the mountaintop finish on Alpe d’Huez, the third hors categorie climb of the day.

Carlos Sastre attacked at the base of the climb up the 21 switchbacks of Alpe d’Huez, and tho Denis Menchov went with him for a bit, Sastre rode off with the stage win and took over the yellow jersey from teammate Frank Schleck.

Sastre crossed the line 2:03 ahead of Sammy Sanchez of Euskatel Euskadi and CSC-Saxo teammate Andy Schleck, who again was a beast on the climbs.

The rest of the top contenders, including Frank Schleck, Cadel Evans of Silence-Lotto, Bernard Kohl of Gerolsteiner, Christian Vande Velde of Garmin-Chipotle, Caisse d’Epargne’s Alejandro Valverde and Menchov, finished in a select group 2:15 behind Sastre.

There were attacks and counter-attacks by the select group of contenders throughout the climb, with each rider taking a  turn at trying to get away, and Andy Schleck covering basically all of the moves. The accelerations and decelerations allowed Sastre to ride away and forced Evans to do the heavy pacemaking on the final stretch up the mountain.

Evans’ work left him 1:34 behind Sastre overall, in fourth place in the GC, but he’s in pretty good position for the deciding time trial on Saturday. Evans beat Sastre by 1:16 in the Stage 4 time trial, and the TT in the penultimate stage is nearly twice as long at 53 kilometers, but then again, the yellow jersey has been known to make riders faster and Sastre will have it on his back Saturday.

Schleck fell back to second overall 1:24 behind Sastre, and Kohl is third at 1:33. Menchov is fifth at 2:39 behind Sastre, and Vande Velde is sixth, 4:41 in arrears, with Valverde seventh at 5:35 behind. Vande Velde recovered nicely after losing more than 2 minutes Tuesday in Stage 16.

Columbia’s G.C. hope, Kim Kirchen, got dropped on Alpe d’Huez and finished 6:01 behind Sastre. He now ranks 11th, 8:35 behind in the G.C.
Barring a crash or something unforeseen in the next two stages, I still see Evans as the clear favourite, with Frank Schleck, Sastre, Kohl, Menchov, Vande Velde and Valverde battling for the two remaining podium spots. Menchov, Vande Velde, and Valverde are the best time trialists in the bunch. Should be exciting.

And now some words from Sastre and Frank Schleck, as quoted by letour.com:

Schleck: “We had planned that Carlos would attack at the beginning of the climb and that I should attack afterwards but he got away and he took it all the way to the line and deserves everything that he’s earned. I’m not at all disappointed. I’m happy that he’s taken the yellow jersey; that’s the only way that we can win the Tour.

“I didn’t get any orders on what to do. We are professionals and we are friends so I didn’t need to be told how to ride. Things went exactly according to plan and it happened right from the start of the crucial phase. We were prepared to back up an attack from Carlos with one from me, then one from Andy until we made the other leaders tired.

“We’ve seen a beautiful stage today from CSC and I’m proud of our boys.

“I don’t want to talk about the time gaps we need over Cadel Evans; next thing I’ll be asked how many seconds I need to stay on the podium… come on, we had to play our tactics today and we’ll consider what needs to be done next. One step at a time. For Cadel we hoped to try just a series of small attacks and see if he would show any weaknesses or if he would blow at one point. It would have been different. But he never blew so we had to play it this way.”

Sastre: “We saw a great stage and a team work perfectly together. Without the support of Frank and Andy, this moment would not have been possible. I am happy for many things. To have riders close to me like the colleagues I have is very special; men like Fabian, Stuey, Nicki, Kurt, Vladdy, Jens Voigt and the Schleck brothers is, I think, something very special. For sure, it’s a nice moment for me and a time to enjoy for the whole team and this jersey and the white one worn by Andy are for the team. All of us are really happy today.

“I don’t know about my gains and how it is for the time trial on Saturday. I want to enjoy the moment now and celebrate with my team-mates because they did a fantastic job. The best thing we can do is enjoy the yellow jersey, the white jersey and the stage victory because we have been working really hard for this.

“I was suffering a lot, man. That climb was hard! They say that when you’re suffering it’s hard to enjoy the moment but when you are gaining time on your rivals, there’s a lot of satisfaction that comes from that. It helps you push as much as you can and try to go as fast as you can.

“I’m satisfied because the team has given me everything. Big riders like Fabian have sacrificed everything for us to afford our dream. The media has to talk about something and I’m happy that Frank took the pressure off me before. I just hope that everyone appreciates what the CSC-Saxo Bank team has been able to do.

“The victory celebration maybe cost me one second. This moment is something that happens once in your lifetime if you’re very, very lucky and I wanted to enjoy it at the time.”

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