Originally Posted by dagna

After Stage 4, he's sitting in 84th place, 1 minute 7 seconds back. IIRC, he was six or seven minutes back last year when he made his epic solo breakaway on stage 9. One assumes after last year, no one would let him get away again when the race reaches the mountains, but I'm wondering if any team will step up to take the responsibility of keeping him in check. The sprinters' teams are chasing down the breaks now, but they won't do it in the mountains. It's possible the GC teams will all try to stall to make another team shoulder the commitment--and if they wait too long, Rasmussen could get lucky.

I hope so.