The year Andy Schleck won TWO Tours de France.

I kept quiet for a while, I couldn't gauge my men over the last two or three days. I couldn't really hold my breath, without turning blue, until uncertainty would subside. Now it has.

Gone for at least a day are the hesitation waltzes, the watch me, I watch you, the fine calculations similar to a pharmacist's count, whether to take risk already 50 yards from the arrival, or later, or to do a really crazy thing 100 yards away. No one showed even a glimmer of strategy, and tactics were rudimentary. Yet people suffered. The Tour is a big deal, excruciating, dangerous. But somehow we were missing the champion who showed guts, who would do his thing, show us, get us out of our armchairs. I missed my old hero Charly Gaul, the Angel of the Mountains, a climber as the world has never seen again. A legend who would defy gravity, and punish his opponents on the scary slopes of Galibier.

Andy Schleck couldn't wait for the Galibier. So there he went in the Izoard which not only made for a marvelous display of guts, but even for good tactics, the finest the Schleck brothers can play, and only brothers can play: it is fine if the other one wins.

So here it goes. Monfort is dispatched up front. Andy attacks, not looking left and right, leaving Frank in Contadors back, like a mosquito. Andy joins forces with team mate Monfort. He will either succeed going the whole way up the Galibier, but if not, the alternative kicks in. If the peloton, or rather the survivors of the peloton will catch up with Andy. Therefore Contador has to the work, maybe even Cadel Evans, maybe Voeckler the man in yellow if he has juices left. If that happens, Frank Schleck, doing no work, will be fresh enough to immediately place his own attack, and that would probably be much closer to the arrival. Barring unforeseen weakness, one of the Schlecks had to win.

Now we know how it turned out. Fine strategy, because it was. The Schlecks didn't have to play the alternative solution. Andy Schleck, though weaker on the last 2 km, seemed surprisingly fresh. Compare that to Voeckler, one step away from intensive care. as for Contador, I'm inviting him to come to Florida and try to beat me. Privately I claim to be the local King of the Mountain. As for the man under the radar, he had to come out today. Cadel Evans had to limit his losses all by himself. He needs still to be taken care of tomorrow, or he will remain a contender.

I would by now think that Schleck will win the Tour. I don't yet know for sure if it is Andy or Frank. If it is Andy, he might actually win 2 Tours de France the same year: the Tour 2011 and also the Tour 2010 if Contador is found guilty later in August when the delayed = denied justice will be spoken.