Cycling/Tour de France:Gradually but inexorably the list of possible winners of this Tour is shortening. Barring a dramatic turn of events, yesterday's short, intense Alpine stage saw the end of Alexandr Vinokourov's slim hopes.
He was barely able to speak for the pain and the emotion after the finish at the top of a steep climb to Vauban's fortress here, where his stumbling words and tears were captured live on French television. His distress was understandable: he is 33 and may never have a better chance to win the race.
Even before he disappeared from view at the foot of the fearsome Col du Galibier he was clearly in trouble. On the Telegraphe, the first-category climb which is a viciously steep prelude to the Galibier, he slipped back to the race doctor's car for a brief consultation. The prognosis was not good and, once the race had gone through the little town of Valloire to tackle the Galibier, all he could attempt was damage limitation with the help of his Astana team-mate and fellow Kazakhstani Andrei Kashechkin.
Coupled with the time he lost on the day of his crash in the hills above the Burgundy vineyards and in the final kilometres of Sunday's second Alpine leg, to Tignes, Vino is eight minutes five seconds behind the race leader, Michael Rasmussen.
The remaining pretenders for overall victory have also drawn away. They include his team-mate Andreas Kloden, who is just in touch in eighth place overall, and last night it seemed likely the Astana team would get fully behind the German.
The Galibier was the battleground for two separate contests, as is often the case on mountain stages. The battle for the stage win went to the young Colombian Mauricio Soler, who had attacked on the Telegraphe and overhauled the remains of an earlier escape in the imperious, effortless manner of great South American climbers such as Lucho Herrera, winner at L'Alpe d'Huez in 1984.
Currently, the battle for the yellow jersey is not a matter of daring swordplay and brave parrying strokes. With no clear favourite the contenders are merely feinting to test one another's strength. The Spaniard Alejandro Valverde accelerated twice, scattering what remained of the peloton. Australia's Cadel Evans also drifted briefly ahead, vainly trying to follow another Spaniard, the Paris-Nice winner Alberto Contador, as he attempted a counterattack to catch up with Soler.
Valverde's effort saw off Vinokourov and a handful of others who were possible winners 10 days ago - last year's runner-up, Oscar Pereiro, last year's winner at L'Alpe d'Huez, Frank Schleck, and the strongly fancied Russian Vladimir Karpets and the young German Linus Gerdemann, who started the day second overall. France's only remaining hope, national champion Christophe Moreau, was struggling but clung on.
Soler clung on to the finish to give Colombia its first stage win since 2002. His is the classic story of the farmer's boy who jumped on his bike to escape working in the fields, inspired by tales of Herrera and his personal hero, Miguel Indurain, who won a world championship in Colombia in 1995. "I attacked like un loco," he said, but he climbed with the unbroken rhythm of a locomotive on a mountain railway.
He vindicated the organisers' gamble in inviting the 24-year-old's low-budget Barloworld team and now also has a chance of emulating Santiago Botero and Herrera as King of the Mountains, if the incumbent Rasmussen is distracted by having to defend the maillot jaune.
Although the descent from the Galibier is vertiginous and narrow, there were no crashes to match those of Sunday and the day's most impressive chute had a note of farce, when a sleepy labrador took a lunchtime stroll through the peloton. Given T-Mobile's recent fortunes, one of their riders was bound to be the victim, and it was young Marcus Burghardt who came a cropper, fortunately to no ill effect.
