Landis struggle in Alps, falls to 11th place

SI ^ | 7/19/06

[charming_harmonica]

Floyd Landis struggled on the second day in the Alps, losing his overall leader's yellow jersey Wednesday and falling all the way to 11th place in the Tour de France. Landis began the day with a lead of 10 seconds in the three-week race that ends Sunday. The American ended the day more than 8 minutes behind new leader Oscar Pereiro of Spain. The Alps, where seven-time champion Lance Armstrong always separated himself from the field, turned out to be the undoing of a former teammate who was hoping to follow in Armstrong's footsteps. Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark easily won the 16th stage after breaking away early in the toughest Alpine test so far. One more stage remains in the Alps, on Thursday. Pereiro was third in the stage and took an overall lead of 1 minute, 50 seconds over another Spaniard, Carlos Sastre, who was second in Wednesday's grueling stage. Landis labored on the last ascent and finished 23rd in the stage, 10:04 behind Rasmussen. That left the Pennsylvanian 8:08 behind Pereiro. Landis is not even the top American any more. Levi Leipheimer is now ninth overall, 7:46 behind Pereiro. Rasmussen, who won the polka dot jersey for the best climber at last year's Tour, started as the third-best climber but moved up to No. 1 in a stage that included several tough climbs. It was his second career stage win at the Tour. The stage featured four climbs along the 113-mile trek from Bourg d'Oisans, including two so hard that they defy classification in cycling's ranking system. Riders ascended the mammoth Col du Galibier, the highest point of the race at 8,681 feet, just after the start. And they endured the tortuous Col de la Croix-de-Fer before the uphill finish.

[charming_harmonica]

Geez. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He seemed set to do really well, but this could all but whipe out his chances

[Bigh4u2]

Armstrong is the benchmark for the rest of the americans to live up too.

I give them an 'e' for effort because it's got to be a tough race.

Who, knows. He could catch up and eventually win coming from behind. It's been done before.

[fnord]

ping

[nutmeg]

Thanks, fnord. I still can't believe how Landis fell today.

I'll ping the TdF list. I guess by now everyone in various time zones knows today's results...

[nutmeg]

Tour de France ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my Tour de France 2006 list.

[luv2ski]

Sorry, but there is no way that is going to happen. If he were to get into a breakaway, the peloton would chase him b/c he is considered dangerous. He cannot make up 8 min in the ITT so the only possible way would be for him to beat the rest of the contenders by 9 min tomorrow in an inhuman show of strength. That would mean that all the rest of the field would have to bonk. Not going to happen.

[drew]

I can't believe Floyd bonked! That sucks.

[PeteB570]

FL is baaaaaack.

It appears he did get that break and the peleton did fail to start the chase until too late. Not bad, back up in third place and only a few seconds off the lead.