Le Tour de Lance

[Flubber]

Lance wins.

The finish was familiar with Armstrong edging basso one more time ( he wants the time bonuses for a stage win). Kloden and a much stronger-looking Ullrich rounded out the top 4.

The top 10 on the stage


001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 4h 40' 30"
2 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 00' 00"
3 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 00' 03"
4 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 00' 06"
5 151 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 00' 13"
6 101 VIRENQUE Richard FRA QSD at 00' 48"
7 158 RASMUSSEN Mickael DEN RAB at 00' 49"
8 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 00' 53"
9 069 VOIGT Jens GER CSC at 01' 04"
10 067 SASTRE Carlos ESP CSC at 01' 24"

Ita amazing how quickly folks like Azevedo and Voigt can lose time after being with the leaders until the last climb at the finish

Vockler elastic has snapped and he will be well more than 5 minutes back. Armstrong will be in yellow.

[Flubber]

Voeckler actually lost about 9 and a half minutes and has plummeted down through the general classification. Apparently he should get the white jersey as the best young rider ( although his rival did finish in front of him on this stage).

Interesting that Ullrich attempted to attack in these mountains. Naturally he is not just going to concede .. . The attack failed against the combined efforts of Postal and CSC ( Basso) but it did show he is still a strong rider. Since Kloden is now apparently T-mobiles leader, the attack can be seen in two lights-- Ullrich trying to gain time OR making Postal and CSC work harder while Kloden sits on their wheel.

[DinoDoc]

When are the doping allegations going to start in the French press?

[DanS]

When did they stop?

[Drake Tungsten]

Did they ever stop?

edit:

[Flubber]

The top 10 in the general classification

1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance USA USP in 67h 13' 43"
2 061 BASSO Ivan ITA CSC at 01' 25"
3 017 KLÖDEN Andréas GER TMO at 03' 22"
4 071 MANCEBO Francisco ESP IBB at 05' 39"
5 011 ULLRICH Jan GER TMO at 06' 54"
6 002 AZEVEDO José POR USP at 07' 34"
7 081 TOTSCHNIG Georg AUT GST at 08' 19"
8 129 VOECKLER Thomas FRA BLB at 09' 28"
9 134 CAUCCHIOLI Pietro ITA ALB at 10' 10"
10 151 LEIPHEIMER Levi USA RAB at 10' 58"

Only Basso and Kloden even have a decent chance to win ( barring catastrophe for Armstrong). Aklso note that Ullrich has pulled himself into 5th-- but I think that both Kloden and Basso are now too strong for Ullrich to crack the top 3.

Kudos to Kloden to finish well despite what looked to be a nasty crash

Voeckler will be in white as he lost only a few seconds to Sandy Casar-- he has a pretty large lead in that category

Virenque also picked up a ton of points for the King of the Mountains-- no suprise that he went out to win the intermediate climbs for the bigger points.

[pchang]

The word is that Basso has been training hard in a wind tunnel and has greatly improved his time trial form.

[alva]

Ita amazing how quickly folks like Azevedo and Voigt can lose time after being with the leaders until the last climb at the finish

Neither of them are competing for the overall individual classification, therefore once the're role is played out, they take it 'easy'.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by alva
Neither of them are competing for the overall individual classification, therefore once the're role is played out, they take it 'easy'.

True but Azevedo is currently in 6th in the overall which is pretty great for a rider who's job is to ride himself to exhaustion on behalf of Armstrong. A top 10 finish is very likely and with a time trial tomorrow in which he can't help Armstrong, I would not have blamed Azevedo if he continued to pull hard to keep himself up in the GC. As high as 4th was ( and maybe still is) in his reach.

I guess the fact that he goes easy once his work for Armstrong is done, without regard to his own placing,is further proof of the focus of the Postal Team. There is no goal and no effort extended for anything other than Lance winning yellow.

[pchang]

Azevedo's time is another proof of the overall strength of the Postal team. Another one is the number of ex-Postal members who have gone on to lead their own team. Perhaps Azevedo will be the next to be recruited.

[Flubber]

Well postal try to get a top notch team all around-- Aparently they made a serious attempt to get Basso. If they had succeeded basso would probably be in 6th or 8th or 10th overall, depending on the role he wasassigned and we might have seen Azevedo as a leader of another team and challenging for yellow.


The guy that has most suprised me is Heras-- Perhaps I am too influenced by my memories of him leading lance over mountain after mountain in previous tours. I really thought with a team around him he would do much better than he has shown thus far.

[pchang]

Armstrong

was pretty harsh about Heras in interviews. He said the guy didn't learn anything during his time at Postal. At the time, I thought Armstrong was just being an arrogant dick. Maybe there was some truth to his statements. Perhaps Heras' performance is an indication that he did not learn good strategy and training preparation while at Postal.

[Flubber]

Lalpe D'huez time trial is on and Lance, riding last is on the mountain when I I just lost my live audio broadcast

arrggghhhh

So far-- with Lance to come, the leaders at the second timecheck are

Ullrich
Kloden
Azevedo and
Basso

a familiar group eh ??

[Flubber]

Ouch Lance is killing them at the 2nd ine check now


1. ARMSTRONG (USA, USP) 23'28"
2. ULLRICH (GER, TMO) at 40"
3. KLÖDEN (GER, TMO) at 01' 07"
4. AZEVEDO (POR, USP) at 01' 12"
5. BASSO (ITA, CSC) at 01' 15"


If he can maintain this pace, there will be no doubt as to Armstrong's supremacy and only a crash will prevent a record 6th win

[Flubber]

Four riders left to go at the final timecheck before the finish

ALPE D'HUEZ (entrée) - km 12.5 153 riders
Last rider : 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) - 1st in 00:34:37
1- 011 ULLRICH (GER, TMO) 00:34:37
2- 002 AZEVEDO (POR, USP) 00:35:13 at 36"
3- 014 GUERINI (ITA, TMO) 00:35:38 at 01' 01"
4- 023 GONZALEZ (ESP, PHO) 00:35:43 at 01' 06"
5- 075 KARPETS (RUS, IBB) 00:35:44 at 01' 07"