Sunday, July 10, 2005
He finished 20th in the eighth stage, but still holds a one minute lead.
GERARDMER, France (AP) -- Lance Armstrong looked around for help and found none. He was alone, on a Tour de France climb, his rivals swarming all over him.
Armstrong's usually trusty teammates failed him Saturday in the first encounter with the mountains, unable to match the punishing pace set on the day's final ascent by riders determined to bring down the six-time champion.
"If it's two more weeks of days like today then you're in trouble," said Armstrong, who kept his overall lead after finishing in 20th place.
Armstrong found the will and the way to fend off most of his challengers in the eighth stage, which was won by Dutch rider Pieter Weening in a sprint with Andreas Kloeden. Armstrong and key rivals Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov arrived in a pack, 27 seconds behind the two leaders.
Bad day for Discovery team
The collapse of the Discovery Channel team and the strong challenges by the powerful German T-Mobile squad bode ill for Armstrong as harder climbs loom today and next week in the Alps.
"Definitely, a crisis within our team on the final climb," Armstrong said. "For whatever reason I was left alone. We had a bad day as a team and that makes it that much harder and I had to cover some big moves myself."
T-Mobile is built around Ullrich, Vinokourov and Kloeden -- challengers Armstrong has decisively beaten in the past. This Tour represents their last shot at the Texan because Armstrong is retiring at the end of the three-week race.
Ullrich won the Tour in 1997 but has since finished runner-up to Armstrong three times. Kloeden was second last year, when Armstrong got his record sixth win. Vinokourov, third in 2003, is perhaps the biggest danger. The Kazakhstan champion has explosive acceleration on climbs, is unpredictable and hungers for success having missed last year's Tour because of injury.
He was first to challenge Armstrong on the final Col de la Schlucht climb, surging ahead. Armstrong accelerated and caught him, only for Vinokourov to break again, following French rider Christophe Moreau.
Once more, Armstrong laid chase, followed by Ullrich. But Paolo Savoldelli, the only one of Armstrong's eight teammates who managed to stay with them to this point, was unable to match the bursts of speed, falling back and leaving Armstrong alone.
Let Kloeden go past
Armstrong and the other riders eyed each other warily as they continued ascending. Then, after another attack from Vinokourov, Kloeden suddenly sprinted ahead. Armstrong, knowing the German trailed him by 2 minutes, 29 seconds in the overall standings, cut his losses and let him go, concentrating instead on Vinokourov and Ullrich.
"You have to pick your fights. You can't cover them all," Armstrong said. "I was trying to do my best and minimize the damage."
Weening of the Rabobank team was riding ahead. Kloeden caught the Dutchman at the top of the 10.4-mile ascent, and they raced downhill to the finish in Gerardmer, in eastern France.
There, Weening beat Kloeden by a whisker. He covered the 143.8-mile route, which started in the German town of Pforzheim, in 5 hours, 3 minutes and 54 seconds.
Armstrong, Ullrich and Vinokourov were part of a 32-rider pack at the end. Ullrich was sixth and Vinokourov 10th. Three of Armstrong's teammates trailed nearly a minute behind, and the five others were a whopping 2:30 back.
Still has 1-minute lead
Overall, Armstrong remained 1 minute, 2 seconds ahead of Vinokourov and 1:36 ahead of Ullrich. Jens Voigt of Team CSC moved up to second place overall, 1:00 behind Armstrong. Vinokourov is third. Kloeden rose to ninth, picking up a time bonus for his second-place finish and cutting his deficit to Armstrong to 1:50.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.