Showing who's boss

Armstrong drives home advantage with time trial win

The final 2002 Tour time trial provided the race’s strongest rider the perfect opportunity to drive home his advantage and seal a fourth consecutive overall victory, reports Cycling Weekly magazine.

LANCE Armstrong (US Postal) stamped his authority on the Tour de France yet again with a convincing ride to victory in the 50-kilometer ride against the clock from Regnié-Durette to Mâcon.

The Texan was in his element on the extremely technical course, which had everything from a fairly long third-category opening climb, a few fast descents with sinuous corners, variable road surfaces and even some straight stretches near the finish. Just to add to the fun, the heat in the vineyards north of Lyon on Saturday afternoon was intense, and the crowds larger than ever.

What it meant “I AM not the patron,” Armstrong insisted in his final press conference, but the emphatic style with which he won the first and the last competitive stage shows that if he’s not the boss of the Tour yet, he’s due that promotion pretty soon. Although it might have been closer than expected with Raimondas Rumsas in the final race against the clock, Armstrong’s control of the event overall has been as imposing and as impressive as ever. “They’ve made me work hard,” said Armstrong of his rivals, but the overwhelming image that fans worldwide will remember of this Tour is of the American on the rampage yet again in the mountains, and only marginally off the pace at Lorient. Compared with last year, where the decision to let the break to Pontarlier in the first week take 35 minutes could have cost Armstrong dear, this year his team have been stronger than ever before, and controlled the race competently whenever they needed to. The Texan is not the only US Postal rider who has progressed in the mountains by any means, and Spaniard Roberto Heras has once more come back to his top level. As for this last time trial, Armstrong’s wish to demonstrate why he was in yellow was fulfilled, and Rumsas has been left wondering what might have been. For the Texan, then, business as usual, while David Millar’s fourth place is another indication that the Scot is revving up nicely for the Tour of Spain.

But this proved no problem for Big Tex: one of the few riders to use a helmet, Armstrong recorded a 53-second margin of victory over Lithuanian Raimondas Rumsas. True, the Lampre rider would have come closer, possibly much closer,if the bolt attaching his carbon-fibre handlebars had not come loose. Instead, after a strong start, giving him the fastest time at the top of the third-category ascent -- an impressive 16 seconds faster than Armstrong -- his chances of both a stage win and perhaps a second place overall slipped away as his bars slipped downwards.

Offered a tool from the following car to try to resolve the problem himself, as if that was not distraction enough, Rumsas made the fatal error of not changing his bike .A change would have cost him 20 seconds perhaps, but he said afterwards he was convinced the problem had cost him the stage by 30 seconds and the second place overall -- in other words, a whole lot more.

Consequently the final time trial only saw two major shuffles on the general classification: Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano moved back up a spot to fifth, overtaking ONCE teammate Jose Azevedo. A little further down, history repeated itself for Levi Leipheimer and Roberto Heras. Back in 2001 the American had pushed his US Postal teammate Heras out of third place in the Vuelta in the final time trial. Now riding for Rabobank, Leipheimer once more succeeded in overtaking Heras in the last race against the clock for eighth place overall.

But it was Britain’s David Millar (Cofidis) who really set the early running, clocking the fastest times at the intermediate checkpoints,and setting a provisional best of 1-05-04 at the finish.

In the process, Millar managed to catch 2001 Tour of Flanders winner Gianluca Bortolami (Tacconi Sport) in the first 20 kilometers and then two more riders, German veteran Rolf Aldag (Telekom) and Cofidis teammate Bingen Fernandez in the final, less complex section of the course.

Despite setting off so early, Millar’s best time spent just 14 minutes on the electronic board of the finishing gantry before it was wiped out by Hungarian national time trial champion Laszlo Bodrogi. The Mapei rider, who also held the provisional best time in the Luxembourg prologue, impressed once more by taking eight seconds fewer than Millar to complete the course.

Big guns hit the ramp

But the serious action did not begin until mid-afternoon, when Armstrong, Joseba Beloki (ONCE) and Rumsas rolled down the starting ramp at three-minute intervals.

While Beloki struggled on the course but clung onto his second place, for Armstrong this was a return to his winning ways in Tour time trials following his defeat by Kelme’s Santiago Botero two weeks earlier.

"I tried to stay calm and come home strong,” Armstrong said. “I tried not to take risks on the descents, which was the reason that we came to look at the course six weeks ago, although obviously it felt different going down at 70kph than it did then at 40kph. I stayed with my hands near the brakes, but I couldn’t be too careful as I’d lost a little time going up.”

By kilometer 33.5, at the second checkpoint at Channe, Armstrong was back in control, and 21 seconds faster than Rumsas. A tight smile as he took the final corners indicated that he knew his advantage, which might easily have evaporated in the intense heat, had in fact risen to 53 seconds over the Lithuanian.

The message was clear: Armstrong could have continued for days, perhaps weeks, in control of the Tour had he needed to. It was a fine way to sign off and ensured that he had already struck the first psychological blow in the war for Tour 2003.

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