But there are still over 400 kilometers of racing to be completed and with temperatures due to stay in the mid-90s, the final three days will be long and wearying. After three long weeks on the road, tempers in the Tour caravan are fraying and following an unfortunate incident on yesterday’s brutal stage to Pamplona, the photographer’s pool and TV cameramen withdrew their services for the day’s stage.
Their actions came about after one of L’Equipe’s top photographers, Patrick Boutroux, together with veteran driver Jacques Garcia, was allegedly knocked off his motorbike at 90 kph on the vertiginous and narrow descent of the Col de Soudet by a Kelme team car, driven by Alvaro Pino. "We were trying to pass him on the left but he was determined to pass a bottle to Fernando Escartin and the tail end of the car hit us," said Garcia today.
"The worst of it was that he didn’t even stop or ask if we were all right after the stage," said Boutroux. "The Tour’s three weeks of hard work, but I don’t want to spend my life in a wheelchair because of some idiot."