Armstrong flies on L'Alpe d'Huez
In each of his two Tour de France victories, Lance Armstrong has performed heroic feats on the first mountaintop finishes of the race, taking complete control of those Tours and forever linking his name with those climbs. Sestrières …. Hautacam …. On Tuesday, Armstrong again launched himself ahead of his biggest rivals, taking a big step toward overall victory, but this time, instead of standing alone, his name goes down with the some of the legends of Tour history. And instead of having complete command of the Tour, he still has a few obstacles to contend with before he can don the leader’s yellow jersey.
On the most famous climb in cycling, the 21-switchback, 14km ascent to the mountain town of Alpe d’Huez, Armstrong did what he did on those other 10th-stage mountaintop finishes, ride away from all of his closest rivals, leaving them head down and demoralized.
As expected on a day with three “above-category” climbs, the race blew apart by the finish, although it wasn’t until he was on the climb to Alpe d’Huez itself that Armstrong rode his way into the history books.
After a day of waiting and bluffing, Armstrong went on the move just 2km into that final ascent, and from there, he executed the Postal plan for the day: ride for the stage win on the famed climb.
“The reason we raced like that today was simply because it was Alpe d’Huez. It’s a mystical stage that we wanted to win,” he said.
But once he was clear, Armstrong took the opportunity to stick it to his rivals, speeding away in his now-trademark super-fast cadence, and beating second placed Jan Ullrich by just under two minutes.
It was Ullrich whose Telekom team set the pace for most of the day, on a stage that included the 2000m (6540-foot) Col de Madeleine, the 1924m (6291-foot) Col du Glandon and the 1850 (6049-foot) Alpe d’Huez — and more than 17,000 feet of total climbing on the 209km stage that began at an elevation of just 220m (719 feet) in the thermal spa town of Aix-les-Bains.
Before that trio of Alpine peaks in the final 122km, there was 87km of difficult little valley climbs in the Savoie region of France.
With the race favorites geared up for the showdown on the three mountains, it was no surprise to see an early breakaway, just 6km into the race, of three riders who were far down in the overall standings: Laurent Roux (Jean Delatour), Antonio Tauler (Kelme-Costa Blanca) and Eladio Jimenez (Banesto).
Those three were allowed to roll up the road, and by the time they reached the little Category 3 climb of the Col du Frêne, their lead had grown to double digits. Then, after a technical, 8km descent with about a dozen switchbacks of its own, they faced a long, difficult ride to the foot of the Madeleine, 90km into the race.
Behind, the chase was not full-out, with the Postal team riding tempo at the front, and by the time the main peloton reached the Madeleine, the break had a lead of more than 13 minutes. Once onto the climb, though, Telekom took over, with Kevin Livingston, Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Klöden doing the bulk of the work setting tempo for Ullrich.
The opening kilometers of the 25km-long Madeleine are incredibly steep before the climb begins to level out in the middle. Those first few switchbacks took their toll, with much of the peloton struggling and getting spit off the back. Among those put in trouble were the yellow jersey, Stuart O’Grady; Telekom’s Zabel; Stage 6 winner Jaan Kirsipuu, who would later abandon the race; and American Bobby Julich, who would see any overall hopes disappear on the long stage to Alpe d’Huez.
Teammate Jonathan Vaughters stayed back with Julich initially, but eventually had to leave the side of his American teammate, who would chase back before the Glandon, only to be dropped again.
“I asked Roger [Legeay, the Crédit Agricole team director] if I should wait back. He kind of hummed and hawed a little bit, and then said, ‘We don’t think Bobby’s gonna make it today,’” said Vaughters, who would go on to finish 27th on the day. “The group wasn’t even riding hard yet on the first climb. But he’s ridden a great Tour so far, and he should be proud of that.”
With Tauler dropping back to the peloton on the Glandon, Roux and Jimenez continued to dangle about six minutes up front, with Roux eventually distancing himself from the Spaniard, while Ag2R’s Alexandre Botcharov making a brief escape just ahead of the field.
When the main peloton, down to about 40, hit the Glandon, Telekom continued to drive the pace, keeping a steady tempo and allowing Ullrich to maintain his rhythm, instead of having to respond to constant attacks and accelerations.
Behind, Armstrong looked as if he was struggling at the back with teammates Roberto Heras and José Luis Rubiera at his side. The sight of Armstrong at the back — while Ullrich climbed easily at the front ahead of Christophe Moreau (Festina), Joseba Beloki (ONCE) and Laurent Jalabert (CSC-World Online) — began to have people wondering. Was this going to be the day when the American would finally look human? Or was it a bluff?
It was a bluff.
“Now in cycling everybody is watching,” said Armstrong. “The directors in the cars have TVs. The directors at home have TVs. Spectators have TVs. Everybody watches. So sometimes you have to play that game a little bit. And our team wasn’t in a position to work, so it was better to let Telekom continue to work and continue to suffer a little.”
At that point, Armstrong had only the Spaniards Heras and Rubiera by his side, with Tyler Hamilton still suffering from the after-effects of his first-week crash and ensuing stomach problems. So Telekom continued to drive the pace, all the way to the base of L’Alpe d’Huez.
But there, Armstrong took over. Riding in his smallest or second-to-smallest gear most of the way up, the Texan opened up his gap early, and it grew to two minutes before the group containing Ullrich, Beloki, Moreau, Oscar Sevilla (Kelme) and Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (ONCE) began to recover and hold the gap at a steady margin.
However, as Armstrong sped past Roux, and past the throngs of people lining the road — including a large contingent of American spectators — he was more than a kilometer ahead of Ullrich, who powered just clear of Beloki at the finish.
In the end, Armstrong finished in 6 hours 23 minutes, with Ullrich 1:59 behind, Beloki 2:09 back, Moreau 2:30 behind and Sevilla at 2:54. After that, the gaps grew bigger and bigger as riders rolled across the line alone or in groups of three to four.
Back in those groups were two of the key riders who were part of the breakaway group that gained the amazing 35-minute gap on Stage 8 to Pontarlier: Andrei Kivilev (Cofidis) who finished 12th, 4:39 behind Armstrong, and François Simon (Bonjour), 29th at 10:20.
Kivilev began the day with a 13-minute lead on Armstrong thanks to that Stage 8 breakaway, and his solid climb up Alpe d’Huez means that he now sits second overall, with an eight-minute margin on the American. With four mountain stages still to come, Armstrong and the other race favorites should be able to close the gap to Kivilev, but the Cofidis rider won’t be an easy target.
“It’s not just my responsibility to worry about those nine minutes, or however many minutes it is,” said Armstrong. “It’s Jan’s responsibility, it’s Beloki’s responsibility, it’s Moreau’s …. Kivilev is a damn good rider. He can climb. He’s got form. He just won the Route du Sud before this race …. We might have made a very big mistake the other day. He could be tough to beat. Tough to catch.”
Simon, who began the day 4:32 behind Stuart O’Grady, moved into the overall race lead, although he’s unlikely to hold onto the yellow jersey once the race move on to the Pyrénées later in the week. “I hope to keep the jersey tomorrow, and into the Pyrénées,” said the Frenchman, “but it will be very, very hard.”
Armstrong, meanwhile, will have his work cut out for him in the 32km uphill time trial from Grenoble to Chamrousse, the day after an all-out effort. “The scary thing is, and I have to tell you guys, that was everything I had there,” Armstrong said of his ride on Tuesday. “I couldn’t have gone any harder. And that’s the bad news. It’s tough to recover from an effort like that and do a normal stage, with tactics involved and perhaps other guys are tired. But I imagine, it’s very tough to do a stage like this and then do an individual time trial up a difficult climb like Chamrousse.”
However, those thoughts were at the back of Armstrong’s mind on Tuesday, a day to go for the stage win. “It’s a very special stage,” he said. “It’s a stage that means a lot to everyone in cycling. It’s probably the most famous climb in all of cycling, and that motivated me today. It’s really an honor to win this stage.”
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