Suisse: Total Chaos!

The Tour de Suisse is supposed to be a tuneup for the top riders to get prepared for the Tour de France. Unfortunately for several top sprinters, their hopes took somewhat of a fall after a hectic crash in the final sprint to the line. The incident started when Mark Cavendish and Heinrich Haussler collided with each other in an attempt to beat each other for the same lane. The impact caused both of them to hurl towards the ground and take out many of the riders sprinting behind them. In this frenzy, Alessandro Petacchi went around the carnage to cruise to the stage victory. It was bittersweet for him, because although he was happy to get the win, nobody was happy after the end result of today. The disgust was clear in the faces of many riders as they inched their way across the finish line. Cavendish was given official blame for the incident, and received a penalty in points and time, as well as a small fine. He was lucky, though, compared to some of the others. Tom Boonen, a top sprinter recently returning from a knee injury, landed right on the injured leg and said he believes he can race tomorrow but his knee was sore. Haussler had to abandon the race, after sustaining serious cuts and scrapes from his impact on the pavement. Another rider, Arnaud Coyot, was reported to have a broken hip after the incident. The cause of this incident can indirectly be related to the craziness that ensued before the sprint even happened. A series of very late attacks by riders from Transitions, BMC, and Astana left the teams controlling the peloton both disoriented and disorganized. Thus, many of the sprinters (especially Cavendish) were left without much of a leadoff and were left to frenetically scramble for position themselves. Obviously, this lead to much less organization than usual and eventually the crash. It is always such a shame when things like that happen, as nobody ever wants to see each other get injured. I wish the best of luck to Haussler, Coyot, and any others who may have been injured in the fray. There were essentially no changes at the GC standings, considering it was a sprint. Martin retained his 1 second lead over Cancellara, and his yellow jersey. Tomorrow is when the first real "mountains" stages start.

Several considerable climbs at the end of stage 5 should make the climbs manageable, but not easy. After today's issues, I see it very unlikely that there will be another mass sprint to the finish. Instead, I see HTC Columbia shifting their focus from protecting Cavendish for a stage victory to protecting Martin's yellow jersey. He was able to do it quite well today, but the mountains will be a real test for him in the upcoming days.

CLASSIFICATIONS AFTER STAGE 4

OVERALL

1. Tony Martin

2. Fabian Cancellara -1

3. Thomas Lovkvist -9

4. Rigoberto Uran -10

5. Dries Devenyns -11

7. Frank Schleck -13

11. Nicolas Roche -18

13. Levi Leipheimer -19

18. Robert Gesink -27

19. Ryder Hesjedal -27

21. Matteo Carrara -29

22. Lance Armstrong -30

27. Andy Schleck -37

36. George Hincapie -54

38. Dave Zabriskie -57

MOUNTAINS

1. Aitor Hernandez Gutierrez 19

2. Alexandre Pliuschin 18

3. Mathias Frank 15

POINTS

1. Marco Marcato 32

2. Alessandro Petacchi 25

3. Fabian Cancellara 24

TEAM STANDINGS

1. Team Saxo Bank

2. Quick Step -28

3. Rabobank -38