Tour Stage 9: Sprinting to the Top

Although most of the King of the Mountain points had been collected by those up the road, Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) fought it out in a hard sprint for the final KOM point on offer at the summit of Le Markstein, the first Category One climb of the 101st Tour de France.  Rodriguez was the victim of a rather spectacular crash in the rain during the 2014 Giro d'Italia, roughly two months earlier.  He was carried off of the road by ambulance having suffered three broken ribs.  Not surprisingly he has not been at his best in the first days of the Tour, starting Stage 9 almost an hour down on the Yellow Jersey.  The leader for Katusha has had to change his goals for this Tour from overall podium finish, watching him sprint for the KOM points seems to show that the new goal is the Polka Dots in Paris.  Edet did all he could to nip the points from the Spaniard, but it wasn't to be for the Frenchman just now.  This is a small original watercolor and ink painting that is available through my artist website at www.greigleach.com.  This work will appear in my soon to be self published book on the 2014 Tour de France seen through the eyes of an artist.  To learn more about the book project, "Tour de Book", to pre order your copy or to become involved in bringing this artistic race to print, please visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1335072134/book-de-tour.  If you would like to purchase this particular painting, just follow the direct link at the end of this post.

http://www.greigleach.com/large-view/Tour%20de%20France%202014/2402070---199992/Painting.html#.U8Mwz8_D_IU