He may not be climbing as well, but Lance Armstrong still barrels down the mountains like a yellow-light bandit.
Armstrong took the descent of the Col de Peyresourde at top velocity Sunday and preserved his lead in the Tour de France. It wasn’t easy. He is now facing multiple snipers as opposed to one big gun.
The man Armstrong was chasing was not Jan Ullrich, who is closest to him in the overall standings, but Alexandre Vinokourov, the Kazakh rider who has been the most consistent provocateur of the race, attacking repeatedly in the mountain stages.
Vinokourov took off again on the final climb of Stage 14. His path through the hyperventilating masses of Basque fans at the summit had already been cleared by riders with no chance at the overall championship, and he was able to scramble to third place, 18 seconds shy of Armstrong and three seconds behind Ullrich.
Armstrong has never lost the yellow jersey this late in the race. He kept it Sunday because he went for broke on the other side of the Peyresourde. Almost motionless in a concentrated crouch, leaning perilously close to the edge on every curve, the Texan looked more in control than he has in days.
“It’s fair,” Armstrong said of the open speculation that he is on the south side of his prowess. “I think it’s obvious I’m not riding as well as I have in years past. I can’t exactly say why. Something’s not clicking.”
Vinokourov’s season has been emotionally charged since the death of his friend and countryman Andrei Kivilev of the Cofidis team in a crash in last spring’s Paris-Nice race.
When Vinokourov won the nine-day stage race, he carried a poster-size photograph of Kivilev onto the podium and wept openly. He also has won the Amstel Gold one-day race and the Tour of Switzerland this season.
“I’m perhaps profiting from the duel between Lance and Jan, because they are watching each other, and that gives me a little bit of freedom,” said Vinokourov, 29.
“I’m happy I got time off them both.”
Vinokourov races for Ullrich’s former team, Telekom, and is a close friend of the German rider. Before the Pyrenees stages began, Vinokourov declared that if Ullrich made a big move in the mountains, he wouldn’t try to challenge him.
As Vinokourov’s own podium chances increase, that kind of cooperation seems less likely. The Kazakh is not a strong time trialer and will have to make his statement in the two remaining mountain stages. This centennial Tour now boils down to those two days and Saturday’s time-trial ending in Nantes, on the Atlantic coast.
Monday’s Stage 15 features the third and last uphill finish of the race, on Luz-Ardidien.
Two years ago, Ullrich clasped Armstrong’s hand as they scaled the summit together, a gesture conceding the Texan was the stronger rider that July.
No such handshake agreement is likely this week.
Armstrong seemed chipper Sunday.
“I knew it was going to be close,” he said. “I probably didn’t expect it to come down to the last few decisive stages, so this perhaps is a bit of a surprise.
“Something’s not going right. There’s nothing I can do about that now.
“All I can do is wake up every morning and do my best, and that’s what I’m doing. If we get to Nantes and I have 15 seconds and I lose by 16, it’ll go down as the closest Tour de France in history and I’ll go home and have a cold beer and come back next year.”
– – –
At a glance
Stage 14: Saint-Girons to Loudenvielle-Le Louron, 118.9 miles.
Stage winner: Italian Gilberto Simoni (right), Saeco, in 5 hours 31 minutes 52 seconds.
How he did it: Outlasted a breakaway to get a small bit of satisfaction out of an otherwise disastrous Tour. The reigning Tour of Italy winner, whom many expected to be a contender for the Tour podium, Simoni cracked in the Alps and is in 54th place, 1:24.58 off the race lead.
Inside the peloton: U.S. Postal’s Manuel Beltran and Jose Luis Rubiera have ridden strongly in the mountains, doing their jobs by churning along in the early breakaways and then dropping back to help Lance Armstrong at the end. But Postal’s ostensible No. 2 rider, Roberto Heras, has blown up on two consecutive days and finished Sunday with a small group nearly 20 minutes behind Simoni. Postal team director Johan Bruyneel said Heras is ill.
Overall leader: Armstrong (U.S.), U.S. Postal Service, by 15 seconds.
Who’s closest: Jan Ullrich (Germany), Bianchi.
Up next: Bagneres-de-Bigorre to Luz-Ardidien, 99.1 miles.
What to expect: A key day for Armstrong with the climb of the legendary Col du Tourmalet and the final uphill finish. Temperatures are expected to be cooler, and if he is capable, he will try to attack rather than leave all his eggs in the final time-trial basket.
