Dead man riding

His Tour hopes having been poured down the drain like the Chicken's "shoes," it seems like Alexandre Vinokourov is involved in some sort of experiment to see how many times he can be pronounced dead before coming back to life again. He's suffered so many deaths and had so many resurrections over the last two weeks that I can no longer keep track. Now he's won two of the last three stages--emphatically. Only problem is he lost half an our on the stage in between. So my guess is he'll suck on Wednesday and then come out and be the hero one last time in the final ITT. I'm sure Andreas Kloden is impressed.

The big excitement today, however, was Contador's repeated attacks on the Chicken. He very nearly dropped the skinny-legged one a few times, but just couldn't shake him for good. But at least he's trying--unlike Evans, Leipheimer, Sastre and co. And for the first time in over a week, the Chicken looked like he was suffering. One more chance on Wednesday, before the roads go flat again.

Tomorrow's a rest day. So there will undoubtedly be no shortage of talk about Rasmussen. Great.

So Swatty wins another stage. It's shaping up to be quite a battle for last place between him Jonnys B & S. Matt has been out of reach for a while now. But the last two steps on the podium are still up for grabs.

Stage 15 results:

1) David S - 185
2) Jonny B - 146
3) Vic - 65
4) David L - 63
5) Chris - 63
6) Cheryl - 39
7) Rachel - 20
8) Jonny G - 19
9) Johnny S - 16
10) Charlene - 12
11) Matt - 10
12) James - 4
13) Hal - 0

General Classification after stage 15:

1) Matt - 2221
2) Jonny G - 1372
3) Chris - 1326
4) David L - 1170
5) James - 1065
6) Hal - 946
7) Cheryl - 920
8) Charlene - 916
9) Rachel - 902
10) Vic - 899
11) Johnny B - 790
12) Jonny S - 710
13) David S - 658

OTT: The Old Ceremony, Poison Pen