All the crystal purity of the Alpine air did not stop a whiff of something unpleasant from the not-too-distant past when the Russian Sergei Ivanov lifted his arms aloft alongside Lac Bourget yesterday as he took the biggest victory of his career, with the peloton close on his heels. It was the second time he had made the gesture here.
The Tour last crossed this line in the late evening of July 29th 1998 after the riders' strike that almost brought the drug-wracked Tour de Farce to a halt; by a surreal coincidence Ivanov was one of the TVM riders whose police interrogation after a seizure of the banned blood-booster erythropoietin in a team car sparked the strike, and who were allowed by their fellows to finish first with their arms in the air. "I remember," he said with a smile yesterday.
The TVM case only recently came to court and, by further coincidence, a judgment is expected today.
A Reims prosecutor has called for a two-year suspended prison sentence and £10,000 sterling fine for Ivanov's former manager, Cees Priem.
The 26-year-old Ivanov has had other problems since 1998: last year he was thrown off the Tour before the start with a blood thickness level above the mark considered "healthy", which can indicate use of EPO.
"Last year I made some mistakes, but they were not just my mistakes," he said.
"This morning, I thought about that stage and it motivated me for the race.
"This victory really warms my heart as I have experienced a difficult start to the season," added Ivanov.
The recent past has not been kind either to his new team, Fassa Bortolo. Their riders have been unable to stay upright this year, from Ivanov's pile-up in the Tirreno-Adriatico race to Ivan Basso's chute on Saturday.
The team leader Vladimir Belli was expelled from the Giro d'Italia for punching a spectator and they had the inevitable drug scandal, also at the Giro, when Dario Frigo was found with flasks of the blood substitute HemAssist, which he said he had no intention of using and was carrying as a kind of security blanket.
On Sunday their doctor broke his arm, completing a sequence worthy of Spinal Tap's drummer.
Yesterday was a foretaste of what the Alps hold today: high hayfields, pointy-spired churches, circling buzzards and rusting ski lifts. It was mountaineering the easy way though, mainly downhill at over 29 mph.
Today is the real thing with two of the Tour's toughest Alpine passes, the Madeleine and the Glandon, followed by the finish at l'Alpe d'Huez.
Yesterday the non-climbers got in some early practice in the business of sticking together for survival after a stiff little third category climb late in the stage; among them was Britain's David Millar, suffering from stomach trouble but no longer lanterne rouge. That honour now belongs to the Belgian Bart Leysen.
At the other end of the field Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong and Joseba Beloki will finally measure up in earnest. The balance tipped the German's way yesterday, as Armstrong's mountain domestique Tyler Hamilton, who is ill, was way off the pace.
Batte will also be joined by the heroes of Sunday's great escape to Pontarlier for the yellow jersey, which Stuart O'Grady accepts will no longer be his tonight. Few of these can climb, but the French veteran Francois Simon, four minutes 32 seconds behind the Australian, is the name on most lips, as he can afford to lose 30 minutes to Armstrong. That figure is as hard to believe as Ivanov's return.
O'Grady, who came in at the front of the peloton in sixth, said: "I didn't feel very good today mainly from yesterday's long wet ride. They (the breakaway group) made life very difficult for me, it was extremely hard."
