Stage 12: A true dog-fight emerges [Tour de France]

Cycling News ^ | July 19, 2003 | John Eustice

[tictoc]

It was more than we could have hoped for.

Lance looked bad in the starting house. His eyes were going all over the place, he almost seemed frightened to me. It was a good Lance, still second in the TT, but the overwhelming imperial Lance of the past four years is not present at this year's Tour de France. A true dog-fight has begun and it will take place in the Pyrenees, which have served as the stage for so much incredible drama over the 100 years of the Tour.

Ullrich is back like never before - his overwhelming victory in the TT, coupled with his prospects in the final TT - has made Jan the focal point of the race. Anyone with ambition for this race knows that he must be dropped in the mountains. The Bianchi team is much better than people give it credit for. Plaza, Garcia-Casas and Casero know the Pyrenees and will now be hyper-motivated. Don't forget, this "lowly" team got third in the TTT to everyone's surprise (and the dismay of many).

The German now has only to follow, gauge the distances lost in the mountains to the true climbers (as he did on l'Alpe d'Huez to perfection) and keep the top five in sight. Lance has the yellow and the responsibility of the race. His team must defend him from the Spaniards and try and kill off the German. Lance must have at least two and half minutes in hand on Ullrich before the last TT.

The Texan's morale has taken a hit - he was very defensive in the post race press conference today. When a super champion's conviction of invincibility is pierced, as it was today, a fairly rapid decline often follows. That special mental state that they have seems to evaporate - Lemond in 1991, Indurain in 1996. Will Lance fight tooth and nail to the very end ala Bernard Hinault? The next days will tell.

One thing is for sure: no one is talking about six straight wins anymore. Vinokourov is the Cinderella story of the Tour. Like a good soldier, he stepped into Botero's shoes and is performing like a champ. The ITT has to be the great ride of his life so far. Watch for an alliance of sorts with Ullrich. Vino will ride to win, but if he sees that it's not possible, better to lose to Ullrich than to Lance. Why? A German win is good for all of German cycling. In every race there is a moment to chase or not to chase with no true reason to take either tact. When that decision comes up, and the choice to either hurt Lance or to hurt Ullrich, which way do you think he'll go?

What more can we say about Tyler? Courage, pluck, what ever words can come out of the thesaurus. Podium looks tough for Hamilton unless a great "defaillance" occurs - a complete collapse in the mountains by one of the above. But again, in this crazy Tour, who knows?

Zubeldia and Mayo are providing great entertainment. Little team, giant heart. A quite a bit of power as well. Zubeldia's TT was excellent, and he is now a very marked man. Mayo may have a bit of room for maneuvre; another stage win is a real possibility.

For me the big question is who will be the first to take up the chase when Richard Virenque goes berserk on Sunday in his quest for a sixth straight mountains jersey. Richard went purposely slow on l'Alpe d'Huez, yellow jersey notwithstanding, in order to lose time on the favorites. He's now almost 12 minutes down, and free to fly in the Pyrenees. Richard, despite his past, is considered by all in the business as a great and true professional and could be the catalyst that explodes this Tour into pieces.

Stay tuned to Cyclingnews, it going to be some weekend!

[TomB]

Watching Lance climb this morning, he doesn't look very good.

We'll have to see if it is a ruse, or if he is in trouble.

Rumor is that Ulrich has an intestinal ailment.

[RoseofTexas]

Did the protest hinder Lance's time? I heard or read that it did, pushed him back a few sec or min., but helped his foe...true or false?

[tictoc]

Nah, the protest made no difference to the times of the race leaders.

But read what US Postal rider Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong's helpers on the team, wrote in his diary:

"The protesters wanted to free José Bové, the activist who's in prison for driving his tractor into a McDonalds. What an idiot. The protesters were just sitting on the road and the cops just drove them off the street. They weren't putting up with any of it. I don't know where those cops came from when they removed those protesters...all of a sudden there were 20 cops beating on these guys. They were not being nice; they were kicking them and then picked them up by their legs and dragged them off the road. You wouldn't do that in America." (End quote)

[TomB]

LOL.

Someone on another thread tried to make the protest out to be some sort of attack against Lance. I told him it was a pretty stupid idea beacuse all the leaders with with him at the time.

The race organizers were expecting this, which explains why the cops were there so quickly.

[nutmeg]

ping!

[nutmeg]

Does any network carry Le Tour live tomorrow morning? I see OLN doesn't run it tomorrow until 8:30pm ET.

[VOA]

Someone on another thread tried to make the protest out to be some sort of attack
against Lance. I told him it was a pretty stupid idea beacuse all the leaders
with with him at the time.

As a naive couch-potato observer of the Tour, I think I can distill the inexpert questions
about the road obstruction (protest on the road) down to this quesiton:

As a hypothetical question...if the protest hadn't occurred and the road
had been open, could Lance have conceivably added to his lead over his closest competitor?
(and I ask this fully acknowledging that Lance may also LOST time compared to the contendors
if the road had been clear)

I'm almost certain that the answer is yes to both...but just wanted to know if there was
some legalistic idiosyncratic aspect of The Tour I'm missing...

There, thanks for considering this naive question. But I think this is the aspect that
nags at us official couch-potato commentators!
I guess I'm just such a "fairness in sport" oddball, I want to be ready to counter
any friends who might say (if Ullrich wins), "Hey, that d-mn German should
have an asterisk by his name in the record book for the 2003 Tour!".
Or, to anyone who says Lance should have the same treatment if he (hopefully!)
carries the day!

[ewing]

No coverage tomorrow on OLN/BBC..Lances website does have a live Danish TV feed

[Prodigal Son]

could Lance have conceivably added to his lead over his closest competitor?

Not really. It was pretty much a downhill stage. No matter how badly Lance's team would've tried to break away, the peloton would've chased them down. A stage like that is almost a "rest ride" for the pack. That's why you see the real action happening in the mountains when the peloton and various teams can't keep up with the pace of the guys like Ullrich and Armstrong. It would've been hard to imagine Lance gaining any advantage on that protest day.

[nutmeg]

No coverage tomorrow on OLN/BBC..Lances website does have a live Danish TV feed

Thanks... I'll check out Lance's website. I assume you mean no LIVE coverage tomorrow on OLN or OLN/BBC. OLN *is* running the rerun of Sunday's race tomorrow night at 8:30pm ET. See www.OLNTV.com.

[TomB]

I think your question is on the lines of could someone give one of the leaders a heads up that they should form a breakaway and then block the peleton so that that rider could gain a lot of time.

The short answer is no. There is are race judges who meet and can make changes to the scoring or some other remedy. Since the leaders in the breakaway were so far behind in time, and their results did not affect the overall standings, they simply let things go.

IIRC, they actually annulled a stage in years past due to a protest like this.

[TomB]

Did anybody see the inteview Lance did after the race? The one I saw was in French and Liggett translated, but from what it seems, Lance was VERY happy with today's result. I guess he hasn't been feeling well these past few days (he said he knew before the time trial he wasn't going to do well) and expects the next few days to be much better.

More mind games from Armstrong???

These next few days could be very entertaining. Although it may come down to the final time trial ala Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault.

[concentric circles]

Road racing covers very long distances. There are often extended periods when the riders find a pace that suits them and stick with it, remaining in a large pack, the peleton.

One or more cyclists may decide the moment is right and accelerate in a breakaway effort. If those who are contending for the top spots feel the break is a threat then they will go with it rather than stay with the peleton but if they feel that the pace of the peleton is strong and that the "escape" will be recaptured before the finish then they will stay with the pack. In this case they felt the escape was meaningless, except for the stage win, and let it go.

At the time of the disruption by the demonstrators there was an escape group that was not delayed but there were no title contenders in that group. All the top riders remained in the peleton which was in the midst of one of those stable periods when all are satisfied with the pace. No one was attempting to put distance between themselves and the rest and no one was likely to attempt that for the time being.

As it developed, the peleton, and all the top riders, experienced a delay of only 90 seconds while the protestors were forced aside. The cyclists remained orderly and in the same relative position to one another while the situation was sorted out, and the race continued.

The Tour officials handled the problem well just as they had dealt with the situation of Armstrong cutting a corner attempting to avoid crashing into Beloki and bike on their way into the pavement. Essentially, they said no harm, no foul. Play on.

There remains an element of sportmanship in cycling. Attempting to gain an unfair advantage is really frowned upon. Earlier in the Tour a tour rookie really got reamed when he attempted a break while another top rider was off the road relieving himself. The offender returned, well chastened, to the peleton.

This year's Tour has avoided political problems that many had feared. Very few reports of jeering, and no other incidents of interference. Hats off to French cycling fans.

Le Tour, oui. Les démonstrations, non.

[Prodigal Son]

More mind games from Armstrong???

I don't know man. I don't see what value it would have to let someone of Ullrich's caliber get that close in time to you. Particularly with more climbing to do and that crucial time trial the day before the finish. Ullrich's looking pretty strong on time trials right now. Also, anything- any little thing- could change this now. A fall, a sudden surge just before the finish, thirst. It's sooo close and I believe Jan Ullrich is hungry for this thing and he feels his confidence surging.

Well... Myself- I wouldn't be playing mind games at this point with that slim a margin.

[winner3000]

If there's no overwhelming heat I don't think Ullrich would have an advantage over Armstrong in the time trials. I remember two years ago Armstrong flattened Ullrich like a pancake in the time trial. I think the heat really got to him this time around. The big question is: was it just the heat or is it really a different Lance this year? I really want him to win this one.

[Prodigal Son]

I don't know. Ullrich is an outstanding time rider himself. He took a lot of time out of Lance yesterday on that time trial. Ullrich's German. You would think if anyone had an advantage in the heat it would Lance. Ullrich knows how to win the Tour de France and he also knows he can win it- an advantage that none of Lance's other competition has. I wouldn't be so quick to discredit Ullrich's time trial- he has a lot of power in those legs.

[Prodigal Son]

Hey, I don't know if you noticed, but Armstrong is also now second in the best climber category. I doubt he really cares but it's been a while since the Tour had someone carrying two jerseys at once.

[VOA]

There remains an element of sportmanship in cycling.
Attempting to gain an unfair advantage is really frowned upon...
...This year's Tour has avoided political problems that many had feared. Very few reports
of jeering, and no other incidents of interference. Hats off to French cycling fans.

Those cunning Frenchmen, depriving me of reason to feel good about disliking them!
(end my joking/sarcasm)

Thanks to all responders. Rest assured that if Lance doesn't pull out the win,
I'll be ready to explain to my fellow "regular Joes" why the winner took
the 2003 Tour fair-and-square.

[VOA]

You would think if anyone had an advantage in the heat it would Lance.

That's precisely why I wanted to know if Lance (and all other contenders) were treated fairly
over the obstruction of the road-blocking protestors.

If Lance is having problem excelling in real heat versus Ullrich, I fear Lance
may be in trouble.

I say this as an Okie who spent some of his graduate school working on a university
research farm in 100+deg. F. temp with UNG-DLY humidity.
With all the training Mr. Armstrong does in his home of Texas, if he's not able to
beat Ullrich in the real heat...it's cause for concern.

BUT, that being said, maybe Lance will rebound strongly when the climb into the mountains
and cooler temps happens.


No matter who wins, the advice I've gotten here has convinced me that whoever
wins won't need an asterisk beside their name in the record books.