Cycling/Tour de France: Lance Armstrong resents the suggestion that he has been lucky in taking his six Tour de France victories, but it can certainly be said that fate has not spared his rivals. A brace of crashes weakened Jan Ullrich before key moments in this year's race, and yesterday tendinitis saw off one of the few men who had been capable of living with Armstrong in the Alps, the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde.
When the 25-year-old outsprinted Armstrong to win Tuesday's key stage to Courchevel he was still suffering from knee pains that had begun when he hit his leg on the handlebars in the team time-trial a week earlier.
Yesterday morning he was lying fifth overall, only three minutes 16 seconds behind the Texan, but with the pain intensifying he bade farewell to his team-mates as the race approached the feeding station at Uzes, near the Pont du Gard, and climbed into a team vehicle in tears.
"Physically I'm in good shape but it's not possible to go on like this," he said.
Asked this week what he would do if he were in the position of Ullrich, Ivan Basso and co and wanted to win the Tour, Armstrong laughed and said: "I'll tell you on Sunday."
His point was that today's and tomorrow's Pyrenean stages will probably decide whether he ends his career in eight days with a seventh consecutive overall win.
Today's stage to the ski station at Ax Trois Domaines includes the steep, narrow Col de Pailheres, ranked "super category"; tomorrow's 129 miles includes four first-category passes and the 6½-mile climb to the finish at Pla d'Adet. "It will be the hardest day of the Tour," the Texan said yesterday.
It is terrain that will suit the rider lying second, Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark, who has promised to take the race to Armstrong; and Ullrich and his T-Mobile colleagues Andreas Kloden and Alexandre Vinokourov have nothing to lose after their disastrous showing at Courchevel.
The sprinters will be fighting for survival this weekend, but yesterday's flat, baking-hot stage across southern France gave them one last chance to mark up points toward the green jersey. Three riders are in contention for the award, the Australians Stuart O'Grady and Robbie McEwen and the Norwegian Thor Hushovd, and yesterday their teams played a game of cat and mouse behind a five-man escape.
McEwen was the favourite for yesterday's finish; he won two stages in the opening week and his disqualification for headbutting in the finish at Tours meant he had points to make up on his two rivals. With these factors in mind, O'Grady and Hushovd's directeurs sportifs refused to allow their teams, Cofidis and Credit Agricole, to participate in the chase.
It fell to McEwen's Davitamon-Lotto team to reel the escapees in, and the double points winner was duly rewarded when he sprinted out of the final corner past the final two attackers, Sylvain Chavanel of France and the American Chris Horner, to win the stage from O'Grady. Only 22 points separate the two Australians and Hushovd at the top of the points table, but their battle will take a back seat until the race leaves the Pyrenees on Tuesday.
Stage13: How they finished
Miramas - Montpellier (173.5 km)
1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 3hrs 43mins 14secs, 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis, Le Credit Par Telephone, 3 Fred Rodriguez (USA) Davitamon-Lotto, 4 Guido Trenti (USA) Quick.Step, 5 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole, 6 Anthony Geslin (Fra) Bouygues Telecom, 7 Robert Forster (Ger) Gerolsteiner, 8 Magnus Backstedt (Swe) Liquigas-Bianchi, 9 Gianluca Bortolami (Ita) Lampre-Caffita, 10 Chris Horner (USA) Saunier Duval-Prodir, 11 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros-Wurth, 12 Baden Cooke (Aus) Francaise Des Jeux, 13 Peter Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner, 14 Rafael Nuritdinov (Uzb) Domina Vacanze, 15 Luke Roberts (Aus) Team CSC at same time.
Overall: 1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 50hrs 13mins 50secs, 2 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank at 0.38secs, 3 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Credit Agricole at 2mins 34secs, 4 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at 2.40, 5 Santiago Botero (Col) Phonak Hearing Systems at 3.48, 6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner at 3.58, 7 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne at 4.00, 8 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 4.02, 9 Andreas Kloden (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 4.16, 10 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems at same time, 11 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team at 4.47, 12 Jorg Jaksche (Ger) Liberty Seguros-Wurth at 5.33, 13 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto at 5.55, 14 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Discovery Channel at 6.25, 15 Andrei Kashechkin (Kaz) Credit Agricole at 6.32.
Points: 1. Thor Hushovd (Norway/Credit Agricole) 164 2. Stuart O'Grady (Australia/Cofidis) 150 3. Robbie McEwen (Australia/Davitamon - Lotto) 142.
Mountains: 1. Michael Rasmussen (Denmark/Rabobank) 160 2. Christophe Moreau (France/Credit Agricole) 89 3. Santiago Botero (Colombia/Phonak) 88.
Teams: 1. Team CSC 148:23:52; 2. Illes Balears +1:30; 3. T-Mobile +2:09.
