CYCLING/ Tour de France Stage Ten: Coming up to the finish yesterday a fan dressed in a Superman outfit pretended to fly alongside Lance Armstrong, fist pointing up the mountainside, as the Texan left the bulk of the field grovelling in his wake.
"Superhuman" is a facile tag: Armstrong exhibits frailties that are all too human. Unfortunately for the half-dozen souls who felt they had a chance of winning this Tour, he shows none of those weaknesses on the bike. What has set him apart from the mere mortals during the last six-and-a-bit Tours de France is his ability to rise to the same challenge again and again.
Yesterday, at the first summit finish of the Tour, the knockout blow came in the usual way. On arrival at the foot of the 14-mile climb to this ski resort Armstrong's Discovery Channel team put the pressure on and the race turned into a matter of mere survival.
Jens Voigt ceded the yellow jersey early on and plummeted from first to 72nd place overall, but that was to be expected. Ten miles from the finish the triple winner of the Tour of Spain, Roberto Heras, disappeared; the Colombian Santiago Botero went with nine miles remaining. At eight miles to go came the coup de grace: Armstrong gestured to his Ukrainian team-mate Yaroslav Popovych and saw off Alexandr Vinokourov, Jan Ullrich and Andreas Kloden all at once. T-Mobile's trio de choc looked suitably shocked.
To underline his physical superiority, like a boxer whistling at the count, Armstrong immediately began to perform stretching exercises on the bike; the others were the ones being pulled to their limits, however, and five miles from the line last year's third-place finisher Ivan Basso gave up the struggle.
Only three remained on equal terms, none of them on the Texan's list of danger men: the current King of the Mountains, Mickael Rasmussen, and the Spaniards Alejandro Valverde and Francesco Mancebo from the Balearic Islands team, the direct descendent of Miguel Indurain's Banesto. The finish sprint at Couchevel's chilly altiport went to Valverde, but it barely signified.
As always, Armstrong had a point to prove afterwards: that he resents allegations that he is lucky. "It's not respectful, it's not honest, it's not true and it's not reality," he said. "We're not a team, a director and riders that won six Tours de France because we were lucky. I can't lie, I saved that on the hard drive."
Since July 13th, 1999 - a rainy, cold day at the Italian ski resort of Sestriere - Armstrong has now demolished all recognised opposition at the first mountain-top finish of the Tour and taken a serious option on overall victory six times - subject to the usual provisos about crashes and illnesses and acts of God.
The places and dates are worth naming: July 10th, 2000, Hautacam in the Pyrenees; July 17th, 2001, l'Alpe d'Huez; July 18th, 2002 and July 16th, 2004, the Pyrenean resort of La Mongie. It has been sporting serial murder; each time he has killed the race as a serious contest, and it is utterly compelling.
Only one man remains capable of challenging him, and that is Rasmussen, the hollow-cheeked Dane who won Sunday's stage across the Vosges. On paper, Rasmussen could attack Armstrong today over the "roof of the Tour", the 8,000ft Col du Galibier. Thunderstorms are expected, and race followers were warned of lightning strikes on the mountain's bare slopes. That may be as threatening as it gets: most probably Rasmussen will be content with the polka-dot King of the Mountains jersey.
LEADING POSITIONS
(Grenoble - Courchevel, 192.5km):
1 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 4hrs 50mins 35secs
2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel at same time
3 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank at 0.09secs
4 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne at same time
5 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at 1.01
6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner at 1.14
7 Eddy Mazzoleni (Ita) Lampre-Caffita at 2.20
8 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto, at same time
9 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team at same time
10 Andrei Kashechkin (Kaz) Credit Agricole at same time
OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
(after stage 10): 1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 37hrs 11mins 04secs, 2 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank at 0.38secs, 3 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at 2.40, 4 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Credit Agricole at 2.42, 5 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne at 3.16, 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 Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile Team at 4.16, 10 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems at same time.
