Italy's Basso wins 12th stage of Tour de France

yhaoo sports ^

[ma bell]

A MONGIE, France, July 16 (Reuters) - Italy's Ivan Basso won the 12th stage of the Tour de France, a 199km stage from Castelsarrazin to La Mongie, on Friday.

American Lance Armstrong finished second, Germany's Andreas Kloeden came third.

France's Thomas Voeckler retained the yellow jersey.

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Check out Serbia's Cycling Challenge

[mlbford2]

Lance finished 2nd with SAME time as winner. Armstrong moves from 6th to 2nd place. 4+min behind the leader who sux at climbing, and that is really all that is left. Main rival Jan Ulrich falls 4+min behind Armstrong. Lance is making his move. Tomorrow is toughest climb in the Pyrenees.

[ma bell]

should be Serbia's Cycling Challenge - sorry for typo.

[Cagey]

You are going to be so killed for putting this in breaking news. LOL!

[ridesthemiles]

You are going to be so killed for putting this in breaking news. LOL!

GOD BLESS you for putting this into breaking news. Not all of us have cable or direct TV and cannot get the live coverage...Thank you Thank You.

[Cagey]

Send a freepmail to nutmeg and get yourself on the TDF live thread for each stage.

The problem with this thread is the results are listed in the headline and many people are planning on watching the rerun of today's stage later on and would rather watch without knowing the results.

[mlbford2]

go to www.espn.com and open 'Tour Tracker'. Java application that updates live. Plus gives very interesting info on course, teams etc. I have it running in top corner of computer when working.:-)

[nutmeg]

To the Admin Moderator:

PLEASE take the words "Italy's Basso" out of the headline of this thread. Many FReepers plan on watching the replay of this race (which just concluded about 1/2 hour ago) tonight and do not want to know today's stage winner. FReepers can read about the winner(s) in the body of the thread.

I think everyone would be happy with a headline like this: "***** wins 12th stage of Tour de France"

Thank you!

[Bob]

You are going to be so killed for putting this in breaking news. LOL!

GOD BLESS you for putting this into breaking news. Not all of us have cable or direct TV and cannot get the live coverage...Thank you Thank You.

Putting the thread in Breaking News isn't much of a problem. Putting results in the title, though, is going to be a bummer for a lot of people who are waiting for the replay later.

[gopwinsin04]

Classy move by Lance letting his opponent win the stage (who has never one before)

Tomorrow will be time to drop the hammer on Ulrich and Tyler Hamilton.

[mlbford2]

Why do you say Lance let him win. Looked like both of them were about to die.

[gopwinsin04]

Look at the pictures of Alpe 'D Huez last year after lance fell at the bottom and raced his way to the top winning. (that is a man possesed, about to expire)

[Paradox]

Lance smokes his main competition (Ullrich) but there are others to worry about as well. This Tour is still up for grabs, but Lance has definately shot a big one across the bow.

Results for the 12th Stage of the 2004 Tour de Fr(L)ance.

Pos.	N°	Name	Nat.	Eq.		Time
1	061	BASSO Ivan	ITA	CSC	in	5h 03' 58"
2	001	ARMSTRONG Lance	USA	USP	at	00' 00"
3	017	KLÖDEN Andréas	GER	TMO	at	00' 20"
4	071	MANCEBO Francisco	ESP	IBB	at	00' 24"
5	067	SASTRE Carlos	ESP	CSC	at	00' 33"
6	027	PEREIRO SIO Oscar	ESP	PHO	at	00' 50"
7	076	MENCHOV Denis	RUS	IBB	at	00' 59"
8	196	SCARPONI Michele	ITA	DVE	at	01' 02"
9	031	MAYO Iban	ESP	EUS	at	01' 03"
10	023	GONZALEZ Santos	ESP	PHO	at	01' 03"
11	081	TOTSCHNIG Georg	AUT	GST	at	01' 03"
12	171	SIMONI Gilberto	ITA	SAE	at	01' 32"
13	045	GONZALEZ Aitor	ESP	FAS	at	01' 39"
14	051	MOREAU Christophe	FRA	C.A	at	01' 59"
15	075	KARPETS Vladimir	RUS	IBB	at	01' 59"
16	151	LEIPHEIMER Levi	USA	RAB	at	01' 59"
17	134	CAUCCHIOLI Pietro	ITA	ALB	at	01' 59"
18	064	JULICH Bobby	USA	CSC	at	02' 28"
19	014	GUERINI Giuseppe	ITA	TMO	at	02' 28"
20	011	ULLRICH Jan	GER	TMO	at	02' 30"
21	002	AZEVEDO José	POR	USP	at	02' 30"
22	108	ROGERS Michael	AUS	QSD	at	02' 30"
23	009	RUBIERA José Luis	ESP	USP	at	02' 30"
24	114	GONZALEZ GALDEANO Igor	ESP	LST	at	02' 30"
25	029	SEVILLA Oscar	ESP	PHO	at	02' 30"
26	141	BROCHARD Laurent	FRA	A2R	at	02' 37"
27	025	GUTIERREZ José Enrique	ESP	PHO	at	02' 41"
28	126	PINEAU Jérôme	FRA	BLB	at	02' 43"
29	111	HERAS Roberto	ESP	LST	at	02' 57"
30	107	MERCADO Juan Miguel	ESP	QSD	at	02' 57"
31	158	RASMUSSEN Mickael	DEN	RAB	at	03' 02"
32	066	PIIL Jakob	DEN	CSC	at	03' 09"
33	028	PEREZ Santiago	ESP	PHO	at	03' 27"
34	021	HAMILTON Tyler	USA	PHO	at	03' 27"
35	144	GOUBERT Stephane	FRA	A2R	at	03' 27"
36	037	MARTINEZ Egoi	ESP	EUS	at	03' 27"
37	101	VIRENQUE Richard	FRA	QSD	at	03' 27"
38	117	SERRANO Marcos	ESP	LST	at	03' 27"
39	178	PETROV Evgeni	RUS	SAE	at	03' 36"
40	055	HALGAND Patrice	FRA	C.A	at	03' 56"
41	129	VOECKLER Thomas	FRA	BLB	at	03' 59"
42	121	CHAVANEL Sylvain	FRA	BLB	at	04' 22"
43	032	CAMANO Iker	ESP	EUS	at	04' 27"
44	063	BARTOLI Michele	ITA	CSC	at	05' 20"
45	162	CASAR Sandy	FRA	FDJ	at	05' 36"
46	074	GUTIERREZ José Ivan	ESP	IBB	at	05' 36"
47	142	ASTARLOZA Mikel	ESP	A2R	at	05' 38"
48	179	SABALIAUSKAS Marius	LTU	SAE	at	06' 17"
49	033	ETXEBARRIA David	ESP	EUS	at	06' 30"
50	185	MERCKX Axel	BEL	LOT	at	08' 47"
51	152	BOOGERD Michael	NED	RAB	at	08' 47"
52	168	ROBIN Jean-Cyril	FRA	FDJ	at	09' 28"
53	005	HINCAPIE George	USA	USP	at	10' 08"
54	006	LANDIS Floyd	USA	USP	at	10' 08"
55	052	BOTCHAROV Alexandre	RUS	C.A	at	10' 54"
56	096	FOFONOV Dmitriy	KAZ	COF	at	11' 20"
57	112	BARANOWSKI Dariusz	POL	LST	at	11' 55"
58	116	NOZAL Isidro	ESP	LST	at	11' 59"
59	198	SIMEONI Filippo	ITA	DVE	at	12' 01"
60	105	DUFAUX Laurent	SUI	QSD	at	12' 04"
61	102	BETTINI Paolo	ITA	QSD	at	12' 04"
62	097	MONCOUTIE David	FRA	COF	at	12' 04"
63	205	CALZATI Sylvain	FRA	RAG	at	12' 04"
64	177	LUDEWIG Jorg	GER	SAE	at	12' 04"
65	015	IVANOV Serguei	RUS	TMO	at	12' 04"
66	003	BELTRAN Manuel	ESP	USP	at	12' 04"
67	118	VANDEVELDE Christian	USA	LST	at	12' 30"
68	193	GIUNTI Massimo	ITA	DVE	at	12' 40"
69	087	SCHOLZ Ronny	GER	GST	at	13' 07"
70	084	LANG Sebastian	GER	GST	at	15' 08"
71	091	O'GRADY Stuart	AUS	COF	at	15' 08"

[ChewedGum]

True enough, but it was an amazing stage to watch. Yesterday, Lance talked about wanting to get 4 minutes on his key opponents. Today he executed the plan and is just about there.

Tomorrow's stage is extremely difficult, and ends on a climb that is beyond classification. (ESPN just calls it 'B'.) What a fun race.

Gum

[NittanyLion]

Tomorrow will be time to drop the hammer on Ulrich and Tyler Hamilton.

Yep. At this point it's Lance's to lose. And he appears so strong I'm not even sure that the repeated attacks by various cyclists could weaken him enough to put him in danger.

[randita]

Lance has a history of "letting" others win. A few years back, he clearly let Pantani win on a mountain stage -- then next day Lance buried him. Lance implied that he let Pantani win, without actually coming out and saying it directly.

Lance is also known to "feign" fatigue when he's actually doing fine and also to "feign" confidence when he's actually flagging. He's a consummate strategist and actor. He plays the mind game better than anyone.

What you see is usually not what the real story is with Armstrong.