monday, july 15, 2013
guyanatimesGY.com
Froome leaves rivals trailing on Mont Ventoux C
hris Froome produced a blistering ride up Mont Ventoux to win stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday and extend his overall lead in the 100th edition of the race. The British rider attacked his main rival Alberto Contador around seven kilometres from the summit finish at the end of the 242.5 kilometres race – the longest of the Tour. He quickly caught Colombian rider Nairo Quintana, who made his move earlier and then rode clear with 1.2km left. Froome won by 29 seconds to extend his lead over Bauke Mollema and Contador. The Team Sky rider, who also won the mountain-top finish on stage eight in a similarly domineering fashion, strengthened his grip on the race leader’s yellow jersey as he beat Mollema, who is second in the overall standings, by one minute, 46 seconds and third-placed Contador by 1’40”. Dutchman Mollema, who rides for Belkin, is now 4’14” behind Froome, while SaxoTinkoff’s Contador is 4’25” back with six stages remaining in the three-week race. Froome said: “My main objective was to get more of a buffer on the general classification riders but I didn’t see myself winning the stage. “I expected Quintana to
Chris Froome
go further out than he did but I wasn’t expecting it to be that hard to catch him and when I did I thought he was going to win the stage. “But in the last two kilometres he started fading - I didn’t really attack, he just couldn’t hold my wheel. “This climb is so historic and means so much to this
race.” The ascent of Mont Ventoux achieved notoriety on July 13, 1967 when it claimed the life of Britain’s first world road race champion Tommy Simpson, who died close to the summit after taking a cocktail of amphetamines and alcohol.
Hopes of a French winner on Bastille Day rested on the shoulders of Sylvain Chavanel after the Omega Pharma-Quickstep rider raced clear of a breakaway group of nine riders as they hit the bottom of the final climb. The 34-year-old, who has won three Tour stages, opened up a lead of 90 seconds over the main bunch but he was slowly reeled back in and caught with 12km of the climb remaining. Euskaltel’s Mikel Nieve had already made his bid for glory and he was soon joined by Quintana and the pair opened up a gap of 45 seconds on a group containing Contador, Froome and his team-mate Richie Porte. Australian Porte continued to pace Froome until the British rider accelerated with 7km to go. Contador was unable to match Froome’s burst and quickly dropped back. Quintana moved away from Nieve but soon had Froome for company. The Team Sky leader tried a couple of attacks but his Movistar companion was equal to them until he finally cracked inside the final 1500m of the race, leaving Froome to race to the finish on his own. Today is a rest day and racing resumes with stage 16 on Tuesday – a hilly 168km race from Vaison-laRomaine to Gap. (BBC Sport)
Marquez beats Cal Crutchlow to win German GP
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arc Marquez moved top of the world championship standings with victory at the German Grand Prix as Britain’s Cal Crutchlow finished second. Repsol Honda’s Marquez had started on pole, but lost places to first Valentino Rossi and then Stefan Bradl. However, by lap six Marquez had clawed his way to the front, where he remained for the rest of the race. Crutchlow pushed hard in the final few laps but, despite his best efforts, could not find enough to catch Marquez. Rossi, bidding for his second successive win of the season, finished third. “We had a very good race. The victory is so important because those 25 points mean a lot in the championship,” Marquez told BBC Sport. The win boosted Marquez’s title hopes, especially as neither reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo nor Dani Pedrosa were competing in the race
Marc Marquez
at Sachsenring. Lorenzo injured himself in second free practice, compounding the broken collarbone he suffered in practice for the Dutch GP last month. Pedrosa, who arrived in Germany as the championship leader, also injured himself in practice this weekend, fracturing his collarbone and was unable to race. That meant a win for Marquez would move him top of the standings by two points. However, the young Spaniard’s start was far from ideal. Rossi got the
better of him on the first turn, while Stefan Bradl and Aleix Espargaro also passed him. But it did not take long for Marquez to start his charge back to the front, passing Espargaro on lap two before forcing his way past Rossi and then Bradl and into the lead. Crutchlow, who had qualified second, also dropped places early in the race, finding himself sixth by lap two. But, like Marquez, he made his way back up through the field with relative ease and by lap 10 he was up to third.
Crutchlow made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to pass Rossi before finally getting the better of the Italian on lap 16, sneaking down the inside into Turn 11 and into second. The Tech 3 Yamaha rider then set about chipping away at Marquez’s two-second lead, and though he managed to bring it down to 1.5 seconds in the closing stages, Marquez had done enough for his second win of the season. “Well done to Marc because he raced a great race,” said Crutchlow. “Even if Dani Pedrosa or Jorge Lorenzo were here I believe this would have been the same result, I really do. “We have made a massive step. I had my worst ever result here in 2011 and I gave my all this time and, considering my physical condition, I am really happy.” Suter rider Jordi Torres claimed his maiden race win when the Spaniard beat Simone Corsi and Pol Espargaro to victory in the German Moto2 Grand Prix. (BBC Sport)
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South Africa look for limited-overs rhythm
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AB de Villiers
outh Africa in July is not a time for rebirth. The country is caught in winter’s grip – wind and rain sweep over Cape Town; weak, watery sunshine tries to warm things up elsewhere – and cricket will only be woken from its slumber when September ends. By then the new age would have begun. Russell Domingo would have completed his first assignment as head coach and the ODI and Twenty20 squads would have had their umpteenth makeover of the last two years. This one will be their defining redesign, or so we have been told, as they look to prioritise the 2014 World T20 and the 2015 World Cup. Domingo and captain AB de Villiers have been asked to give as much attention to the limited-overs squads as has been lavished on the Test one to restore their previous consistency and rewrite their majortournament record by securing silverware. They have been told to start again, beginning with the five-match ODI and three-match T20 tour of Sri Lanka. “We’re going to have to take a few steps back and do the basics bloody well,” de Villiers said before the squad’s departure from Johannesburg. “It’s about us finding a rhythm as a team.” As things stand, South Africa’s one-day squad are out of sync. Some days the
bowlers beat their drums perfectly but the batsmen cannot join in, on others the opposite happens. Pressure still infects them like an incurable illness, as was evident at the Champions Trophy. That tournament also revealed that the South Africa of old – who entered ICC events as favourites to win and regularly left with a reputation of being the best team not to – is a thing of the past. Last month they were far from the best team at the competition and got what they deserved as a result. The helter-skelter pattern of results leading up to the tournament did not inspire much confidence and they have now realised the value of how they did things before. “Everyone is tired of the word consistency because we talk about it so much but we need to play consistently in this series,” de Villiers said. Removing uncertainty from their game will start with de Villiers. The captain has wavered as much as the game plans, from his decision on whether he will keep wicket full-time to his position in the batting order. Now he seems to have been forced on to stable ground. He will keep wicket, despite the presence of Quinton de Kock in the squad, and he will bat No 4. “We played around with it because of particular circumstances but I think we’ll be more consistent from now,” he said. De Villiers also believes Domingo will enforce regularity throughout the shorter-format squads. The fluid state they existed in under Gary Kirsten was partly a result of a search for combinations and Domingo has promised to end the experimentation. Instead he will take what his predecessor found and polish it. (Cricinfo)
SLPL player draft postponed for July 20
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ri Lanka Cricket has postponed the player draft of the second season of Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL) by six days to July 20, the tournament’s chief executive officer Ajith Jayasekara has said. The player draft was scheduled for July 14, but Jayasekara said, “We have extended the time for all the franchises to pay up their fees to SLC and to Somerset Entertainment Ventures before the players’ draft can be held.” Somerset Entertainment Ventures is SLC’s promotion partner for the league. ”We have given them a deadline till Tuesday eve-
ning [July 16] after which we will terminate their contracts and open tenders for next year,” Jayasekara said. Jayasekara also stated that the second season of SLPL would go ahead as scheduled from August 10 to September 7 even if the number of teams is reduced from its present strength of seven. Several international players like Chris Gayle, Mushfiqur Rahim and members of the South African team, who will be touring Sri Lanka later this week, are said to have indicated their willingness to participate in the tournament. (Cricinfo)