It's classic Armstrong at Le Tour today
A little sports writing today as I'm an avid Lance Armstrong fan... the following is summarized from the offical Tour de France website report on stage 10. You can find it here.
Lance Armstrong's Discovery team looked weak in stage 8, somewhat stronger in stage 9, and absolutely dominate in stage 10 today. It was a classic Lance Armstrong mountain stage. The boss is definitely in the peleton. Seven Discovery team riders led the peleton inside the 20km mark at a blistering pace, dropping some very good riders off the back. Then Lance, Hincapie, and whoever could keep up broke away. It was down to about 15 riders with under 15km to go. By the 10km mark they'd caught long time breakaway rider Jaksche and the lead group had dwindled to 7 riders. Hincapie had dropped back after a great pacesetting effort for Lance. He was completely spent and would finish over 10 minutes behind, but his job was done.
A few minutes later Lance's teammate Popovych also dropped back, leaving Lance on his own to finish the stage.
Top Tour contenders Ullrich and Vinokourov had both been dropped. Lance took over the pacesetting. A couple km later Lance's brutal pace dropped another big rival, Ivan Basso. Just 4 riders remained in the lead group. With about 1km left, Lance showed he was still strong and attacked yet again. Only Valverde could match him and they dropped the other 2 leaders.
Valverde won the final sprint to take the stage, but Lance is back in the yellow jersey and has put serious time on all of his main rivals. Basso faded near the end and lost a minute. Leipheimer lost 1:15. Ullrich, Kloden, and Landis lost 2:14. Botero lost 2:50. Powerful climber Vinokourov lost a surprising 5:18.
This performance is how Lance Armstrong has won 6 straight at the Tour de France. Hit a big mountain stage, the kind of stage that shreds the peleton, leaving small groups of riders all over the mountain, and he just keeps grinding forward at a seemingly impossible pace until all of his rivals have cracked. The only way it could have been better is if he'd gotten the stage win.
I would like to know who Rasmussen is. I haven't heard him mentioned as a top contender for the yellow jersey, but after a tough mountain stage he's only 38 seconds behind Lance overall.
Lance Armstrong's Discovery team looked weak in stage 8, somewhat stronger in stage 9, and absolutely dominate in stage 10 today. It was a classic Lance Armstrong mountain stage. The boss is definitely in the peleton. Seven Discovery team riders led the peleton inside the 20km mark at a blistering pace, dropping some very good riders off the back. Then Lance, Hincapie, and whoever could keep up broke away. It was down to about 15 riders with under 15km to go. By the 10km mark they'd caught long time breakaway rider Jaksche and the lead group had dwindled to 7 riders. Hincapie had dropped back after a great pacesetting effort for Lance. He was completely spent and would finish over 10 minutes behind, but his job was done.
A few minutes later Lance's teammate Popovych also dropped back, leaving Lance on his own to finish the stage.
Top Tour contenders Ullrich and Vinokourov had both been dropped. Lance took over the pacesetting. A couple km later Lance's brutal pace dropped another big rival, Ivan Basso. Just 4 riders remained in the lead group. With about 1km left, Lance showed he was still strong and attacked yet again. Only Valverde could match him and they dropped the other 2 leaders.
Valverde won the final sprint to take the stage, but Lance is back in the yellow jersey and has put serious time on all of his main rivals. Basso faded near the end and lost a minute. Leipheimer lost 1:15. Ullrich, Kloden, and Landis lost 2:14. Botero lost 2:50. Powerful climber Vinokourov lost a surprising 5:18.
This performance is how Lance Armstrong has won 6 straight at the Tour de France. Hit a big mountain stage, the kind of stage that shreds the peleton, leaving small groups of riders all over the mountain, and he just keeps grinding forward at a seemingly impossible pace until all of his rivals have cracked. The only way it could have been better is if he'd gotten the stage win.
I would like to know who Rasmussen is. I haven't heard him mentioned as a top contender for the yellow jersey, but after a tough mountain stage he's only 38 seconds behind Lance overall.
posted by Patrick at
11:42 AM
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