Battle of the Climbers

Wow, what a stage today! It was extremely exciting to see so many attacks and counter attacks.

Winners
- Well done by Discovery Channel, especially Popovych, setting it up for the team and slaying himself for Contador and Leipheimer. Despite the effort he was still able to finish the stage in the top 10. Sweet!
- Contador is AMAZING! Period.
- Rasmussen was able to gain valuable time in the mountains today against Evans who is sure to crush him in the final time trial.
- Soler delivered another brilliant performance in the mountains. I expect one of the bigger teams will try and lure him away from Barloworld after the TDF.

Losers
- Valverde needed something big today to climb back into contention but could not deliver the goods.
- Evans could not keep up with the blistering pace up Plateau de Beille and finished the stage almost two minutes back.
- Astanta did not have a good day in the mountains. Andreas Klöden dropped down to fifth and poor Vinokourov, who was dropped early, lost all chances for the overall.
- While Levi was able to move up into 4th, he could not keep pace with the accelerations on the final climb.

The battle is far from over!