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Armstrong back in control after one mountain stage

Forget the crash at Avranches and his uneven time trial performance -- all it took was one mountain stage, and Lance Armstrong was back in control of the Tour, reports Cycling Weekly magazine.

ONE of defending champion Lance Armstrong’s favorite sayings is, “The Tour is always won in the mountains,” and on stage 11 he put that theory into practice by romping home in first place at La Mongie and leapfrogging over ONCE’s Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano and into his 37th maillot jaune in the process.

Nine years ago the Texan, as a precocious 21-year-old, took his first Tour stage at Verdun. That total has now reached 13, an unlucky number only for his rivals, none of whom -- barring Gonzalez de Galdeano’s teammate Joseba Beloki, twice third in Paris -- were able to follow the blistering pace of Armstrong’s Spanish climbing domestique, Roberto Heras, in the final six kilometers.

For Armstrong this was the day on which he took his first big step towards a likely fourth consecutive Tour victory. Much of the responsibility for Armstrong’s win was due to Heras’ unremitting accelerations, completing the work begun by domestique George Hincapie in the village of Beaudean at the foot of the 12.8-kilometer climb and continued by his Spanish teammate Jose Luis Rubiera.

But it was Heras whose vicious increase in speed dealt the final decisive blow to so many of his rivals -- Levi Leipheimer (Rabobank), Tyler Hamilton (CSC), Richard Virenque (Domo), Kelme’s Santiago Botero (who also punctured at exactly the wrong moment) and last but not least, Gonzalez de Galdeano.

Small wonder that at the finish the Texan said he could not thank Heras enough: “For me, he was the stage winner,” he said.

What it meant FOR the first time in four Tours, Lance Armstrong has moved into yellow without even making a single attack -- his brief little jump off the front in the closing meters is hardly worth counting as such. The biggest lesson he learned was the strength of his team, in particular Roberto Heras. The Texan later admitted that he couldn’t have attacked if he’d wanted to. But the key news, of course, is that Armstrong is back in yellow after one mountain stage, and looking almost as strong as ever. In 2000, after the first day in the Pyrenees at Hautacam, Armstrong ended the day 1-20 ahead overall of second-placed Fernando Escartin, with Christophe Moreau at 2-23, Beloki at 2-53 and Alex Zülle at 4-05. This year, in a similar scenario, there are just two riders within three minutes, with many of his supposed rivals having fallen out of contention earlier than in previous years. Those looking for a real battle should perhaps follow the fight for the green jersey, where Erik Zabel (Telekom) has once more overtaken Robbie McEwen (Lotto).

Indeed, Heras made both his boss and Beloki look uncomfortable as he raced up the slopes, ripping open a gap of 47 seconds on Gonzalez de Galdeano in three kilometers.

Then the leading trio remained together, and with three kilometers to go they passed Laurent Jalabert, the CSC veteran who had made a spectacular, if ultimately unsuccessful lone 120-kilometer attack.

The three then continued their ascent through interminable lines of Basque fans and finally between the crash barriers at the finish, but unlike Beloki, who admitted he was "on the rivet", Armstrong still had fuel left in the tank, and he charged round the ONCE rider and in a matter of 300 meters opened up a gap of six seconds. A brief gesture of victory followed before he crossed the line and moved back into the leader’s yellow jersey again for the first time since Luxembourg.

Beloki apart, the effect of the Postal duo had been devastating; while Francisco Mancebo (ibanesto.com) and Raimondas Rumsas (Lampre) -- neither of them major rivals of the Texan -- crossed the line in fourth and fifth place, just over a minute behind, former race leader Gonzalez de Galdeano finished 11th, almost 1-54 back.

Combined with the 20-second time bonus Armstrong snatched at the finish, the Texan moved to 1-12 ahead of Beloki overall -- not enough of a margin for the American to sit behind his U.S. Postal riders all day from the Pyrenees to Paris, but a near-knockout blow nonetheless.

In fact,Armstrong had ridden the stage as if he was already race leader, putting domestiques Victor Hugo Pena and Hincapie on the front on the Aubisque climb and keeping a steady pace behind the evergreen veteran Jalabert, who had broken away after just 35 kilometres and was leading by 1-15 at the summit over Basque David Etxebarria (Euskaltel-Euskadi). The Frenchman stubbornly stuck it out despite the heat and the Postal pursuit, gaining an advantage of 3-35 at the feed zone.

For the next 40 kilometers, as the race twisted along narrow roads and the tarmac began to melt in the intense heat, Jalabert’s lead hovered around the three-minute mark, giving rise to French hopes of a spectacular mountain victory. However, as the road began to rear upwards towards La Mongie, and first Hincapie and then Rubiera upped the pace behind, Jalabert began to struggle, and as the road steepened through a series of snow tunnels, Jalabert slowed.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the brave veteran as Armstrong, led by his sherpa Heras and followed by Beloki, roared past en oute to certain victory.

“I knew it was going to be hard to reach the finish, but I had to try,” said Jalabert afterwards. “I’ve decided to take this Tour stage by stage, and I felt good so I went for it.”

But with Armstrong already exercising his iron grip on the race, barring accident, the main prize will be heading over the Atlantic and back to Austin.

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