The Stuart O'Grady diary

During the Tour de France CSC speedster Stuart O'Grady will be giving us a regular inside look at the daily goings-on in the peloton and the team hotel. An Olympic gold medalist on the track, O'Grady is a rider to watch in the sprints and long breakaways, and one of CSC's best hopes for a stage win or even the green points jersey.

O'Grady has had a rollercoaster ride at the last few Tours, wearing the yellow jersey in 2001 and green in 2002, but never quite managing to hang on to green all the way to Paris. In the last couple of years he's shifted his emphasis away from sprint speed and remodelled himself as a Classics and long breakaway expert.

Index to all entries

July 19: Anything is possible

Man that was a hard core stage. So much climbing. Straight off the start line and we climbed a 48km col. Wrong, that really was a killer stage. Hardly a metre of flat road in nearly 187km.

Rasmussen once again showed his climbing abilities to win the stage but our boy Carlos rode brilliantly again attacking and taking time out of all the other GC contenders.

Floyd obviously went hunger flat which just goes to show in the Tour de France, anything is possible.

I was happy to get through the stage as well as possible and even though we were just outside the time limit we also knew that with the severe heat they would never eliminate half the peloton.

One final tough mountain stage tomorrow then it's almost all down hill to Paris.

Stage 16 results