Just pasting this reply of mine to Bluebok another thread to this thread where it belongs:
Bluebok, Daryl Impey raced in the Tour last year for the same team. I don't think he expected to ever wear the Yellow Jersey of the Tour de France because he's not a climber, he's not a time trialist and he doesn't really get involved in breakaways . . . he's not even the team's main sprinter . . . but a number of unrelated and unlikely events have made it possible for him to fulfill every road cyclist's dream and pull on the Maillot Jaune.
For starters there was no Prologue this year. Normally the Tour starts with a short time trial that serves the purpose of splitting everyone up in the General Classification. This year there was a bunch sprint meaning everyone in the front group was awarded the same time and the Yellow Jersey in that case is awarded on places rather than on time.
Then there were the bizarre events of the opening stage involving the Orica Greenedge bus (coincidentally, the bus of Impey's team) which got stuck under the finish line and caused so much confusion that they changed the finish line and then changed it back again when they finally got the bus free (with a few minutes to spare). This caused enough confusion in the peleton to cause a huge crash that left about two thirds of the peleton including most of the big name sprinters in a group behind Impey's group, giving him and everyone else in the front group a big advantage.
The next thing that played into Impey's hands was the difficult finish of stage two when the majority of sprinters were dropped on the hard climbs and Impey led out his team mate Simon Gerrans to win the stage and move himself further up the General Classification (remember, there were still no time differences at all at that stage and the Yellow Jersey standings were still based on aggregate placings every day.
The first time some genuine time gaps appeared was in stage 4 which was a Team Trial and Impey's team Orica Greenedge were the surprise winners and suddenly Daryl was in second place overall behind his team mate!
The final coinidence was at the very end of yesterday's stage when Daryl led out his regular team sprinter Matt Goss at the finish and a very small gap opened up behind him . . . enough of a gap to give the front group separate times to the rest of the main bunch (normally when there are no gaps everyone in the bunch gets an identical time) and his team mate Simon Gerrans found himself losing a few seconds to our boy!
As you can see, it's a lot more complicated than simply riding faster than everyone else and I don't expect Impey to keep the Yellow Jersey after the big climbs coming up this weekend but he's already done us proud!
I'm particularly pleased because Impey became an instant hero of mine last year on the slopes just outside a village called St Jean du Maurienne on the climb to La Toussuire. I was cheering the riders on and waving a SA flag, looking for Impey (who was our only rider left at that point after Robbie Hunter had bailed). When Impey finally came past in the main group (quite a few minutes behind the leaders it must be said . . . but it was one of the stiffest climbs of last year's Tour) I shouted "Vasbyt Daryl" and he lifted his hand in acknowledgement. Doesn't sound like much but it meant a lot to me and I'm really thrilled for the guy!
