Signed, sealed, delivered

Armstrong sews up Tour at Plateau-de-Beille

Lance Armstrong’s searing performance on the road to Plateau-de-Beille all but guaranteed the U.S. Postal leader his fourth Tour win, says Cycling Weekly magazine.

BY taking his third Tour de France stage in less than a fortnight, U.S. Postal’s Lance Armstrong has all but sewn up overall victory with nine days, four of them through the high mountains, left to race.

This time the Texan did not wait for the final few meters to bound off the front, preferring to attack with six kilometers left to climb to the summit of the Plateau-de-Beille in the eastern Pyrenees.

The last climb of stage 12 was a real brute of an ascent, its slopes averaging 7.8 per cent. With no false flats or brief descents, Plateau-de-Beille consists of one 16-kilometer slog up to where the road, leading nowhere in particular, runs out of tarmac. Coupled with temperatures touching the 40s, and coming at the end of a 200-kilometer stage including two first-category and two second-category climbs, Plateau-de-Beille did not deter Armstrong,who had all eight of his teammates with him at the foot of the climb.

What it meant AS has been the case for several years, all it has taken is two mountain stages to confirm what everyone suspected: Lance Armstrong is the boss. Even last year, when Pontarlier breakaways François Simon and Andrei Kivilev were ahead of the Texan after two Alpine stages, it was clear what was coming. And now in 2002, the point has been reached where Armstrong’s domination is so obvious that all that remains to be established is who will join him on the podium in Paris. In the process Armstrong has demonstrated himself to be as unstoppable as any modern-day leader has been in the Tour de France -- barring, of course, accident, injury or illness. His rivals will hope for a sudden and unexpected crack to appear in the American’s armour. But when Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano and Joseba Beloki said that this was not the Armstrong of previous years they were right -- this time he is even stronger in the mountains. “I wasn’t a happy camper yesterday on Heras’s wheel,” Armstrong said after stage 12, “but today was different.” With another minute gained on the ONCE leader, the Texan is as unreachable now as he was after Sestrières in 1999, or after Mont Ventoux in 2000, or after Chamrousse last year. So, barring the minor glitches in the Lorient time trial and Avranches crash, so far the 2002 Tour has been business as usual for Armstrong, and, as a consequence, for everybody else, too.

After a moment’s doubt when ONCE put their riders on the front, Armstrong had Floyd Landis, and then Jose Luis Rubiera, take over. Rubiera’s speed was not as high as teammate Heras’ had been on the previous day, but it had much the same effect: after two or three kilometers, riders began to be shelled out of the back of the peloton at an alarming rate, including French climbing star and early breakaway Richard Virenque (Domo).

The U.S. Postal train also once more spelled curtains for Laurent Jalabert (CSC), again out in front after a flurry of attacks in the first two hours had seen him bridge across alone to fellow Frenchman Christophe Oriol (Ag2r) on the descent of the Col de Menté.

Veteran Swiss rider Laurent Dufaux (Alessio) and Spaniard Isidro Nozal (ONCE) had joined Jalabert shortly after Oriol cracked on the day's second climb, the Portet d’Aspet, and the three then remained ahead for the next two and a half hours.

However, their advantage of 2-50 at the foot of the Plateau-de-Beille barely seemed sufficient given that U.S. Postal were out for blood. Sure enough, despite dropping his two breakaway companions, Jalabert was looking in serious trouble far earlier than he had done on the Mongie, swaying from side to side and searching for the slightest dip in the gradient on the climb. Just before the halfway mark, it was all over, as Rubiera charged past at the head of a peloton down to around two dozen riders, and Spanish climbing star Oscar Sevilla (Kelme) slid backwards thanks to his former teammate’s vicious pace.

Sevilla was not the last to crack thanks to Rubiera’s savage acceleration. With eight kilometers left to race, only Joseba Beloki, Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, Marcos Serrano (all ONCE), Santiago Botero (Kelme), and Andrei Kivilev (Cofidis) could stay behind the three U.S. Postal men.

As Rubiera finally cracked after an amazing nine-kilometer drive on the front, Armstrong waved Heras forward. The Spanish 2000 Vuelta winner only took the briefest of turns but the increase in speed was enough for all the remaining rivals barring Beloki to throw in the towel.

Armstrong almost immediately shot past Heras, with Beloki frantically trying to get on the American’s wheel. But it was too late. After a brief interval where the gap between Armstrong and his most serious rival opened slowly, all it needed was for the Texan to press slightly harder on the pedals, and his advantage began to increase remorselessly.

In fact, the situation was looking so good for the Texan that he even gave Heras permission to attack Beloki behind, in the hope that he could wait for the Spaniard and reward the climber with a stage win. But whether Armstrong was going too fast, or Heras had gone too hard the day before, either way the Spaniard sat up and waited for Beloki again after a kilometer of trying to bridge across alone.

Knowing Heras was not going to make it, from then on the American simply never let up. Thirty-seven seconds ahead of Beloki with three kilometers left to race, at the summit -- with a full-on victory salute -- Armstrong was 1-04 ahead of the ONCE leader, who was further humbled when he was unable to stop Heras taking second place and the 12-second time bonus.

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