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Some difficulty for Hamilton

Find that landing.

Ullrich makes his move

A war of seconds

Off the wall.

Sastre honors his family with a win

First Vino' went... then Ullrich charged

It was a packed house at Whistler on Saturday.

Traffic jam from hell in Ax-Les-Thermes. The team buses were stuck as well.

Sastre's win adds to CSC's lead in team standings

Lance Armstrong made it through an epic day in the Pyrénées Saturday, but he only just kept the race leader's yellow jersey on his back after a frantic finale to the 197.5km stage 13 of the 2003 Tour de France. The four-time Tour champion was attacked from all sides on the grinding, 9.1km climb to the Ax-3 Domaines ski area high in the French Pyrénées, but hung on to finish fourth and retain the maillot jaune by a scant 15 seconds over Bianchi’s Jan Ullrich. Armstrong admitted that he was fatigued from the efforts in Friday's individual time trial and tried to limit his losses when Ullrich

Tour supplies for a day on the mountain. No wonder they are so excited when the race comes through

Sprinter Robbie McEwen's bid to win a second successive Tour de France green jersey was not going quite to plan, the Australian admitted on Saturday. McEwen won the jersey last year with victory on the Champs-Elysees on the race's final day. This year, he led the points competition from stage one to five, but dropped to third behind Italian Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo) and Australia's Baden Cooke (fdjeux.com) after crashing on the sixth stage. Petacchi abandoned the race on the seventh stage to leave McEwen second in the standings, eight points behind Cooke. Speaking before the

Lance's bike is buckled into the car for the start.

Stage 13 Individual Results1. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, 5:16:082. Jan Ullrich (G), Bianchi, 01:013. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 01:034. Lance Armstrong (USA), U.S. Postal Service, 01:085. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), Telekom, 01:186. Ivan Basso (I), Fassa Bortolo, 01:207. Mercado Juan Miguel (Sp), iBanesto.com, 01:248. Iban Mayo (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 01:599. Christophe Moreau (F), Credit Agricole, 02:3210. Tyler Hamilton (USA), CSC, 02:3411. Laurent Dufaux (Swi), Alessio, 03:0612. Francisco Mancebo (Sp), iBanesto.com, 03:0913. Richard Virenque (F), Quick Step-Davitamon, 03:4614.

Very French father and daughter at the start.

Lance Armstrong has not yet won his fifth Tour de France, but Saturday marked his 52nd day in the race leader's yellow jersey – beating the total of five-times Tour champion Jacques Anquetil. Frenchman Anquetil sported the yellow jersey for 51 days between 1957 and 1964 as he became the first rider to win the Tour five times. Armstrong, winner of the last four Tours, is still a long way behind Belgian Eddy Merckx, who led the Tour for 96 days, while France's Bernard Hinault was the race leader for 78 days and Spaniard Miguel Indurain for 60 days.

Euskatel fans push a struggling rider.

To see how Stage 13 of the Tour unfolded live, just go to our Live Update window and follow the action all the way to the finish.

The Tour de France of Danish team CSC looked to be over before it had even begun when leader Tyler Hamilton crashed and broke his collarbone on the very first stage. But two weeks later, the brave American is still in the race, lying fifth, four minutes and 25 seconds behind overall leader Lance Armstrong, and his teammates have now won two stages. Spaniard Carlos Sastre, 10th in the Tour last year, nearly became the team's leader when it was at first thought that Hamilton would be forced out. But he resumed his team duties until Saturday, when the Spaniard asked Hamilton permission to try

Mavic car, but going straight.

DH winner Dumaresq.

It was a big day in the Tour de France today. And there are still more to come, with the race hanging on the thread of 15 seconds between Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich. With one of four days in the Pyrénées down, all I am really thinking about now is making it to the finish in Paris – and making the best of next Saturday’s time trial along the way. If you were in the bus – the laughing group – like I was today, there was one thing very funny about today’s 13th stage: hearing the Italians crying as we tackled the major climbs. You could hear them. Crying. Why? They just thought we were

TV camera and fans stakeout the Postal Bus, hoping for a glimpse of Lance.

Jones celebrates his national title.

Lone straggler

Off the box.

It wasn’t only in the top overall placings of the Tour de France that important changes came about in Saturday’s first Pyrenean stage. If you cast your finger down to the end of the right column of the second page of the results sheet — or dragged your cursor to the last place — you’d notice a change that will have gone largely unnoticed. For the first time since stage 9, Belgian rider Hans De Clercq (Lotto-Domo) is no longer the Tour’s lanterne rouge — officially, the last placed rider on overall standings. De Clercq will most probably have taken his move up from last place to 161st at 2

Replenishment motos on the front of the race.

Dropping in.

Despite again losing time to Jan Ullrich on Saturday’s stage, Lance Armstrong is still in the yellow jersey and seems confident of winning his fifth Tour. Before stage 13 started in Toulouse, he happily signed a number of yellow jerseys as souvenirs for local VIPs and then shook hands with a line of local teenage cyclists who waited for him on the presentation stage. He signed more yellow jerseys after the finish, and happily answered questions in French for the France 2 network, which covers the Tour live. Then, after being held up during the chaos of finishing another stage in a small ski

Brochard leads the early break

Berrecloth shows his skills.

Sastre and Mercado off on the chase

3-2-1 lift off.

Friday's stage of the 2003 Tour de France delivered yet more shocks in what has been a Tour of full of drama. The shock of the day was Jan Ullrich turning 47 kilometers of French asphalt into a personal road to redemption, by scoring his first Tour stage victory since 1998 and pushing his longtime rival Lance Armstrong to an unfamiliar second place in a Tour time trial. Armstrong said he ran out of water and suffered with the heat, which again shot into the humid-90s. Armstrong was dealt his worst Tour time trial defeat since his 1999 comeback to the race after overcoming cancer. Indeed,

All good things come to an end, and my days of Tour tech coverage are now but a pleasant memory. I just got back to VeloNews headquarters this morning and had to follow today's time trial the way everyone else does – via www.velonews.com and OLN. I’ve received a ton of questions regarding the time-trial bikes used this year. While access was tight (but possible) with the "daily driver" bikes of the peloton, team mechanics were downright militant about refusing to show their riders' TT bikes. Perhaps the teams didn't want to lose any last-minute tech advantage to the competition, or maybe

Adam Craig getting ready to (free) ride.

Things have certainly changed for the Italian Fassa Bortolo team on the Tour de France - and its experienced manager Giancarlo Ferretti admits he’s feeling rather short-handed. Ferretti, who was on cloud nine in the first week of the Tour as 29-year-old sprinter Alessandro Petacchi added four impressive stage wins to the six he won in the Tour of Italy, has fallen back to earth after a virus decimated his team. Fassa Bortolo have been operating with only three of their nine riders for the past six days - a peculiar but worrying situation which has left plenty of room on the team bus but

Ullrich flew

Men's XC favorite Hesjedal sporting a new look.

1. Jan Ullrich (G), Bianchi, at 58:322. Lance Armstrong (USA), U.S. Postal Service, at 01:363. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), Telekom, at 02:064. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 02:405. Tyler Hamilton (USA), CSC, at 02:436. Uwe Peschel (G), Gerolsteiner, at 03:267. David Millar (GB), Cofidis, at 03:558. Inigo Chaurreau (Sp), Ag2R Prevoyance, at 04:019. David Plaza (Sp), Bianchi, at 04:3710. Santiago Botero (Col), Telekom, at 05:0011. Francisco Mancebo (Sp), iBanesto.com, at 05:0012. Iban Mayo (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 05:0313. Georg Totschnig (A), Gerolsteiner, at 05:0614. Denis

Who is that mysterous mullet-man?

Saint derailleur.

In a recent Sports Illustrated column, Rick Reilly says to his daughter that besides spending two hours writing his weekly column, what he does the rest of the time is “worry about those two hours.” Well, here at bike-geek central, none of us has the luxury of being a full-time, once-a-week columnist, seeing as how our staff is about the size of the Fassa Bortolo squad after a week at the Tour. That being the case, we generally leave it a little late when it comes to our weekly Web columns, which can make for some, um, interesting topics. This week, for example, Neal Rogers found it in

Euskatel rider Zubeldia rides to take the fourth place

Vinokourov slips to third

Saint cranks.

Lance Armstrong said blistering temperatures and not drinking enough fluids gave him a challenging day in the saddle during the Tour de France’s 12th-stage time trial, won by German rival Jan Ullrich here on Friday. Ullrich ended a five-year famine to win his first Tour stage since 1998, another time trial, after posting the winning time of 58:32 over the 47km race against the clock between Gaillac and here. Armstrong, who admitted that at one point he felt he was going backwards, finished second at a massive 1:36 behind the 29-year-old German to see his lead in the race

Vinokourov rides to take third place

The VN Saint testing machine.

Tyler Hamilton

Uwe Peschel set the day's early standard

The Lithuanian cycling federation has imposed a one-year ban on controversial Lithuanian rider Raimondas Rumsas, who tested positive for the banned drug EPO during the Tour of Italy, the federation said Friday. The federation also fined 31-year-old Rumsas 2,000 Swiss francs (1,300 euros). "The federation offered a six-month suspension for Rumsas, but the international cycling federation (the Union Cycliste Internationale) did not agree with this and recommended a four-year ban," said Valentinas Rutkauskas, the secretary general of the Lithuanian cycling federation. The federation had sent

One of the most unusual fans to date....

Britain's David Millar said he was battling with breathing difficulties as he finished a disappointing seventh in the Tour de France time trial on Friday. The Cofidis rider, who had predicted he would finish in the top two in the 47 km sprint from Gaillac to Cap Decouverte, ended up nearly four minutes adrift of Germany's stage winner Jan Ullrich (Bianchi). "I've been sick since the (Wednesday) rest day and just couldn't breathe during the time trial," Millar said. "I set off good, but after 20 kilometers my plans all went up in smoke. It was very hot today, but to be honest it was the

The Pyrénées, with its three stages and two finishes at altitude, will be ideal terrain to settle the rivalry between American Lance Armstrong and German Jan Ullrich in the race for Tour de France victory. Coming after two weeks of riding in intense heat, the stages to Bonascre, Loudenvielle-Le Louron and Luz Ardiden could be punishing. Many believed Armstrong, who leads Ullrich by 34 seconds before the 13th stage to the Plateau de Bonascre on Saturday, had been bluffing in the Alps by simply controlling his rivals instead of demolishing them. But his intriguing defeat by Ullrich in

Michael Rogers

What an absolute stinking hot hole Cap’Découverte is. I have never seen such a big hole. In fact, you will probably not find a bigger hole in Europe. And that’s a fact. Why? The simple reason is that today’s stage 12 time trial finished on the edge of a 750-foot-deep hole in the ground. In fact, the hole is a converted opencast coalmine and was once the largest of its kind in Europe. And at 35 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit) with a temperature of 61 degrees C (142 degrees) on the road, it was a stinking hot place to be watching the Tour. But in all seriousness, on the centennial of

Dear Bob;I was reading an article about a race in which I participated. In the article a fellow competitor made a few comments about me that are untrue. I am not the litigious by nature and plan to do nothing about his lies, but could I sue him for lying about me?AnonymousDear A;In order to succeed with a defamation claim (the legal term which includes both slander - spoken and libel - written) you must prove the following elements.First, you must prove that someone made, either spoken a written, untrue statement of fact about you. If the statement is true, no matter how horrible, there is no