Oops! Don't write off banged-up Vinokourov just yet

	Alexandre Vinokourov was also alone at the end of the 13th stage, finishing 74 seconds ahead of second-place Cadel Evans. Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
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ALBI, France -- I was among the score or so of reporters skulking around the lobby of the Novotel in Montpellier on Friday, hoping extract a quote from embattled race leader Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank. (The crafty Dane gave us the dodge; officials of the Danish Cycling Union, apparently, can relate). Sharing the hotel with the Rabos was Team Astana. While we loitered on the lookout for Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov emerged from the dining room. With a total of 30 stitches in his knees, he made his way across the lobby with the stiff-legged gait of a man with advanced arthritis. It was clear that the podium was beyond his reach.

The only thing that's clear, Vino reminded us Saturday, is that he is going to get his. The 33-year-old Kazakh clawed his way back into contention by powering over the 54-kilometer course around this city in 1:06:38 -- an emphatic 74 seconds faster than second-place finisher Cadel Evans, the elfin, ex-mountain biker from Australia. The third and fourth places were taken, remarkably, by Vino's fellow Astana teammates Andreas Kloden and Andrey Kaschechkin, who posted superb times despite joined the large number of riders who hit the deck on wet, treacherous roads.

On a dreary, rain-soaked day fit only for mad dogs and Englishmen, it seemed appropriate that Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins should hold the lead for most of the early afternoon. It helped that he rolled down the ramp early, before the weather got too awful. His 1:08:48 held up until the skies cleared, mid-afternoon, allowing the GC contenders to ride with more abandon.

Splendidly as Astana rode, the Kazhak-based machine had just a slightly better day than Discovery, which put four riders -- Yaroslav Popovych, Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer and Vladimir Gusev -- in the top 12. Poor Gusev would've placed higher had it not been for his spectacular wipeout: his back wheel slid out as he negotiated a ronde-point -- one of those roundabouts the French use instead of traffic lights. Gusev slid halfway across the road before -- Insult, have you met Injury? -- piling into, up and over a curb. It hurt just watching. He was immediately back on the bike. These are tough men.

None is harder than Vinokourov. Nine days after tearing himself up in a fearsome crash in Stage 5, four days after he wept with frustration after losing another chunk of time to his rivals on the Col du Galibier, he pulled back three minutes from the leaders, and now sits just five minutes, ten seconds behind Rasmussen.