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Ullrich crosses the line more than two minutes later

Horner held his own on the climb to Courchevel

Lance Armstrong might be getting older, but he’s still strong enough to put some serious hurt on the world’s best climbers when the Tour de France is on the line. The 33-year-old Texan surged back into the yellow jersey on Tuesday’s decisive climbing stage across the French Alps to Courchevel. And while he couldn’t drop everyone — Michael Rasmussen, Alejandro Valverde and Francisco Mancebo rode his vapors — he opened up important time gaps on just about everyone else. “I tried to get rid of those guys, but maybe it’s not like the old days when you make one attack and you ride them off to

Discovery on the job

At the start in Grenoble, Moreau was still the great French hope. The climb to Courchevel put an end to his yellow jersey hopes, for now.

Australian cyclist Mark French has had a two-year ban for doping overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the international body said Tuesday. Australian Olympic Committee officials said the ruling also meant a lifetime ban on competing at the Olympics had been lifted and that French would be eligible for a place at the 2008 Beijing Games. A three-man CAS panel found there was no evidence that drug vials found in a bucket in French's room at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Adelaide contained the banned substance glucocorticosteroid. While there was equine

Armstrong gives Popo the word

Ullrich had Klöden for company, but not where either man wanted to be.

1. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Illes Balears 192.5km in 4:50:35 (36.65kph)2. Lance Armstrong (USA), Discovery Channel, s.t.3. Mickael Rasmussen (Dk), Rabobank, 00:094. Francisco Mancebo (Sp), Illes Balears, 00:095. Ivan Basso (I), CSC, 01:026. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Gerolsteiner, 01:157. Eddy Mazzoleni (I), Lampre, 02:148. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 02:149. Andréas Klöden (G), T-Mobile, 02:1410. Andrey Kashechkin (Kaz), Credit Agricole, 02:1411. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak, 02:1412. Leonardo Piepoli (I), Saunier Duval, 02:1413. Jan Ullrich (G), T-Mobile, 02:1414. Jorg Jaksche (G),

Vino' cracked on the second climb

Liberty's custom-painted Record levers

Cadel`s secret inspirationBesides the comic book character TinTin being Australian climber Cadel Evans' biggest inspiration, top-10 Tour de France contender has another force pushing him. It is a blue wristband from his Italian girlfriend Chiara who is a classical pianist. “She gave it to me to make my more aggressive on the bike,” Evans(Davitamon-Lotto) told VeloNews. “She said I needed to be more aggressive and every time I see it to think about that.” The band, which he received on the rest day at Grenoble, seems to be working. Evans, riding his first Tour de France, was eighth at

Voight kisses the jersey goodbye

Another angle

Spanish sensation Alejandro Valverde confirmed his recent promise as a future Tour de France contender with a well-deserved victory on the 10th stage of the race Tuesday in Courchevel. Valverde (Illes Balears) held off champion Lance Armstrong (Discovery Channel) in a two-man race for the line of the summit finish last graced by the wheels of the late champion Marco Pantani, who won here in 2000, the last time the alpine ski station featured as a summit finish on the Tour. Valverde has been hailed as possibly the next Spanish winner of the world's toughest race. In his native country -

Lance back in command

The team's BH bike

Saturday’s stage from Pforzheim to Gerardmer had been so heartening for T-Mobile. It looked like a demonstration of how to unsettle Lance Armstrong and promised an exciting battle in the Alps. After six years, it seemed, a team had finally been formed that could dethrone the Texan, and understood exactly what it takes. On the slopes of the ski station of Courchevel in the Savoy Alps, however, T-Mobile’s hopes were shattered. Jan Ullrich and Andreas Klöden lost two minutes and 17 seconds on the Discovery Channel captain and the day’s winner, Alejandro Valverde. Alexandre Vinokourov lost five

Allez, Allez, Cadel!

The Tour de France blew apart on Tuesday as defending champion Lance Armstrong left a whole list of "Tour favorites" struggling on the climb to Courchevel. Photographer Casey Gibson was there to capture moments both big and small, starting with hos own favorite of the day, a shot of two young Frenchmen who rode to their bikes to the start in Grenoble on Tuesday morning, hoping to see their heroes. Crowds being what they are, the two couldn't get within 300 of the sign in. Indeed, the two were at least 200 meters from anything of interest... until the Discovery team bus pulled up and

Valverde leads the select group

Competitive Cyclist has teamed up with Peloton Project member Andrew Clarke of Greeneville, TN to raise $25,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. As part of this fund raising effort, Clarke will hold a raffle for a variety of high-end roadie accessories. He will limit the raffle to 100 entries, and each raffle ticket will cost $100 -- every penny of which goes directly to the LAF and is tax-deductible. Participants in the raffle will have a one in ten chance of winning prizes whose total value exceeds $5,800. The grand prize of the raffle is a SRM Professional Dura-Ace 10-Speed Powermeter

Valverde impressed the champ with his tenacity

Lance Armstrong knows better than anyone that the Tour de France ends in Paris, and not after just the first mountain stage. That’s particularly true this year because the second half of the 92nd Tour, starting with Wednesday’s stage 11, is more challenging than ever. Mountain stages don’t get much tougher than Wednesday’s, which features 12,600 feet of climbing in just 173km (108 miles). After an initial 30km descent from the start in Courchevel, the uphill work begins with the 25.4km haul up the Col de la Madeleine. This classic alpine climb pitches steeply (up to 10 percent) out of a

Ullrich is now the team leader - but is there a team to lead?

Well looking back there were some good parts of the day. There was that one downhill part and… well, the rest of it wasn’t too much fun. Basically our job for the first 100k was to keep Pellizotti, Garzelli and Cioni out of the wind and after see if they could do something if they had the legs. Obviously with Lance doing what he did today, there were a lot of guys who found out they didn’t have the legs… Garzelli didn’t do too badly, finishing like three, three-and-a-half minutes down. It wasn’t brilliant but still pretty quite good. It was a strange day. I mean here everyone was talking

Bike fans...

Stage 10 - Grenoble to Courchevel >192.5KM

Are you ready, Freddie?

Stage 10 - Grenoble to Courchevel >192.5KM

We wonder what country these guys are from.

Valverde celebrates

Welcome to LanceLand

CSC's FSA-SRM crank

CSC's nifty new Cervélo Soloist Carbons

Hello,It’s been quite a few days here at the Tour, hasn’t it? To start with, we all felt for "Klödi" at the end of stage 8 on Saturday. He rode spectacularly and really earned a stage win, only to be denied by the smallest margin I’ve ever seen. To say the least, he deserves congratulations for a superb effort. The team, too, performed beautifully on Saturday. First off, our guys put in a big effort to cut the advantage of the break as we came up to the Col de la Schlucht and then you saw what happened with Vino’ and Klöden on the climb. Vino attacked, then Andreas as I stayed right on

The first rest day of this year’s Tour found the three strong men of T-Mobile in utterly different states of mind. Jan Ullrich, still the designated leader of the team, was happy to have the day off to nurse his wounds from his crash on Sunday. Andreas Klöden was vacillating between relief that his form is improving after a difficult spring and frustration about the narrow loss to Peter Weening at the end of Saturday’s stage. Alexandre Vinokourov on the other hand could just as soon have skipped the day: “I guess a rest day is okay,” he said eagerly, “but I want to go to the Alps. I am

Spare a thought for... Andre Kivilev, the deceased best friend of Tour de France hope Alexandre Vinokourov (T-Mobile) who was killed in a race crash during Paris-Nice in 2003. “Kivi,” says the Kazakhstan national champion, will be with him throughout the Tour as the race enters the Alps and then the Pyrénées over the next two weeks. “It remains a turning point in my life,” said Vinokourov of Kivilev's death in an interview with the French sports daily L`Equipe. “I have understood since that day what are my real priorities. My outlook on my job has also changed a lot. I have especially

All around Grenoble on Monday’s rest day at the Tour de France, team directors, riders and race followers were speculating what will happen in the crucial stage 10 through the Savoy Alps on Tuesday. There are two schools of thought: Either Lance Armstrong’s team will take control and deliver the Texan to the mountaintop finish at Courchevel in perfect shape; or there will be so many attacks, especially by Jan Ullrich’s T-Mobile squad, that they will stretch Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team to its limit and completely open up the race. “Somebody has to attack,” said Bjarne Riis, the

One reason why Bjarne Riis is so fond of Jens Voigt, is that the man from East Germany is very clear in his analysis and very firm in his decisions. Voigt possesses what one would call leadership qualities, the sort that only few people in cycling have. It’s a characteristic that Riis had in his day and Lance Armstrong shows so well today. Just as Riis and Armstrong made the assessment one day that they can win the Tour and did everything necessary to accomplish this goal, Jens Voigt has made a clear decision about his career. “I am a mediocre sprinter, a bad climber and an okay time

Organizers of cycling's three grand tours, of France, Italy, and Spain appear to be standing firm against a perceived "ultimatum" delivered by the sport's governing body over their adhesion to the UCI's ProTour calendar. The ProTour, the brainchild of UCI president Hein Verbruggen, was introduced in the autumn of 2004 to help modernize and better organize the often-hectic professional cycling calendar - and its global image. The UCI has throughout the reforms met with resistance from the respective organizers of the Tour de France, Giro d’ Italia and Vuelta a España, who felt

Georg Totschnig was slouching through the lobby of the Hotel Mercure in Grenoble on Monday morning, not looking all too happy. The Austrian Gerolsteiner rider, from the picturesque mountain village of Zillertal, was not feeling great, just a day before the Tour enters the Alps. “I have no idea why, but I can’t keep up even with a medium speed in the climbs this year,” the 34-year-old Totschnig said. “I am realistic enough to know that this is not gonna change overnight.” Last year Totschnig made a splash when he came in third in the big Pyrénées stage to Plateau de Beille, dropping

Ullrich emerges from a Grenoble-area hospital after a rest day check-up

Armstrong takes a look at what's ahead during a training ride in Grenoble on Monday.

Stage 10: Up, up and away!

For Voigt the risk of an early attack paid off

Ullrich had a longer-than-expected wait at the airport

CSC gets the jersey back

Does France have renewed hope?

Armstrong doesn't need that jersey - not right now

Rasmussen gets company, but only for a while

Moreau and Voigt work together

Moreau breaks up the chase group

Chicken Run: Rasmussen on his own

Ullrich takes a tumble

Rasmussen has dreamed of this day

Armstrong's teammates were back on the job Sunday

Wake me when they get here . . .

Course: With four Cat. 3s, a Cat. 2 and this Tour’s first Cat.1 climb (the 9km, 7-percent Ballon d’Alsace) through the Vosges, the climberswill finally get some terrain to their liking. But on completing the lastdownhill from the Ballon, there are still 43km to ride in the valley beforereaching the finish in Mulhouse. History: This is the 100th anniversary of the Ballon d’Alsacebecoming the first major climb included in the Tour. The last time a climbingstage through the Vosges ended in Mulhouse was in 1992, when a soon-to-retireLaurent Fignon broke clear on the Grand Ballon climb to score a

T-Mobile fans are prevalent

The 92nd Tour de France was given an inspiring display Sunday of the panache, courage and desire needed to challenge Lance Armstrong in his bid to win the race for a seventh year in succession. First, brave Dane Michael Rasmussen, a one-time world mountain bike champion who launched many an attack in the mountains last year, grabbed his first elusive win on stage 9 from Gérardmer to Mulhouse after a 167km-long breakaway. His victory not only extended his lead in the King of the Mountains competition he took on Saturday, but also gave his Dutch team, Rabobank, its second stage victory in a

Christophe Moreau and Voight on the final climb

Stage 9 Results1. Mickael Rasmussen (Dk), Rabobank, 4:08:202. Christophe Moreau (F), Credit Agricole, 03:043. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, 03:044. Stuart O’Grady (Aus), Cofidis, 06:045. Philippe Gilbert (B), Francaise des Jeux, 06:046. Anthony Geslin (F), Bouygues Telecom, 06:047. Sebastian Lang (G), Gerolsteiner, 06:048. Laurent Brochard (F), Bouygues Telecom, 06:049. Jérôme Pineau (F), Bouygues Telecom, 06:0410. Gerrit Glomser (A), Lampre, 06:04 11. Stefano Garzelli (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 06:0412. Oscar Pereiro Sio (Sp), Phonak, 06:0413. Christopher Horner (USA), Saunier Duval, 06:0414.

Popovych leads Discovery in the chase

Quotes, quotes and more quotes. Here’s what the big guns had to say before and after Sunday’s stage: Jens Voigt (CSC), in the yellow jersey:On finally getting the green light to attack: "We had a team meeting before the race. Riis said everyone with Basso today, but Jens you're free to attack. I've been asking Bjarne every day, but he said no. Finally he let me free today and I was able to do what I wanted to do and it worked out great." On flatting and Moreau waiting for him: "I want to thank so much Moreau that he waited for me. It would have been very difficult to try to maintain

Lance working hard near the summit of Le Ballon d'Alsace

Michael Rasmussen's stunning victory in the Tour de France's ninth stage following a 169km breakaway was impressive enough in itself, but even more so for the fact he only took up professional road racing three years ago. Rasmussen's relative lack of victories in the discipline is apparent - before Sunday's win he only had three wins to his name spread over his three years as a professional road rider. However, his decision to switch from mountain biking in 2001 was justified tenfold Sunday when he claimed the biggest prize a rider of his caliber could hope for. The

Riders flash by on the descent from Col de Grosse Pierre

The lead changed hands at the Tour de France on Sunday, and Casey Gibson was on hand to capture the action. Here's what he saw from his vantage point on the final climb.

Mickael Rasmussen attacks all alone and is putting time on the peloton

Stage 9 - Gérardmer to Mulhouse >171km

Chicken becomes the Energizer Bunny with this win

Stage 9 - Gérardmer to Mulhouse >171km

Voigt and Moreau cooperated all the way to the finish

Rasmussen takes a gamble

Weening would like to try for the yellow jersey one day - but not this year

Landis is ready.

The lead sax player on what Casey calls the worst rendition of ' I Did It My Way' that he's ever heard

After a series of attacks, it's Klöden's that sticks... bringing much needed relief to the fading Weening