News

Brochard leads the early break

Berrecloth shows his skills.

Sastre and Mercado off on the chase

3-2-1 lift off.

At the highest levels of competition, there isn’t that much separating a great day from a bad one. We’re not talking about a huge change in power output or overall performance. At this level, being better or worse by a few percentage points can lead to either minutes gained or minutes lost. Lance Armstrong lost about 6 kilograms of fluid weight between yesterday morning and the end of the stage-12 time trial, and also lost 1:36 to Jan Ullrich during that same time period. Losing 2 percent of your body weight due to dehydration leads to a 10-15 percent drop in performance, and Lance lost 8

The last survivor: Rubiera was the last one of the original 10 to be caught.

Safe!

For the first time in four years, Lance Armstrong is not the favorite to win the Tour de France, the London bookmakers William Hill said on Saturday. They now make Germany's Jan Ullrich the 4-6 favorite with Armstrong at 11-10 and Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov at 14-1.

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.

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

If you’re thinking that this Tour de France can’t serve up any more drama then just wait for Saturday’s finale in the first of four stages in the Pyrenees. It’s going to be hot again, and a Tour peloton wearied by a heat wave and super-sonic race speeds now has to tackle the most difficult phase of the race. Following Friday’s time trial and the shocking defeat of race leader Lance Armstrong by Jan Ullrich, speculation of the four-time champion riding to defeat is rampant. But there is so much climbing ahead that any speculation is meaningless until at least the end of Saturday’s

Ullrich celebrates

Jan Ullrich was downright super today in the Stage 12 individual time trial. We knew coming into the Tour that he was in great shape and anticipated he would be strong in the time trials, and we were right. Today’s results make one thing very clear: Lance Armstrong is going to have to attack in the Pyrenees to win the 2003 Tour de France. Lance Armstrong has an advantage over Jan Ullrich in the mountains, and he needs to exploit that advantage over the next four days to build more of a lead than Ullrich can take back in the final individual time trial on Stage 19. In the mountains,

Beloki smiles as he is pushed on his wheelchair

Armstrong fought hard

This is the type of stage you could call a “sleeper.” It comes the day after the first long time trial, and the day before a classic Pyrenean stage across six mountain passes. But this stage could be more destructive because it has a summit finish that is immediately preceded by what should prove one of the toughest, if not the toughest climb in the Pyrénées. It’s hard to figure why the organizers gave it only a Cat. 1 ranking and not hors-categorie — the Port de Pailhères is longer and steeper than the renowned Col du Tourmalet. It climbs for 25km, with the final 15km on an extremely

Today's individual time trial was pretty brutal. The route was difficult with a lot of uphills, false flats and a headwind. I guess you could say today was a warm-up for the four tough days that lay ahead. The heat was also a huge factor this afternoon. It was nearly 100 degrees out there. I finished exhausted and dehydrated. I think I was half delirious on the bus ride back to Toulouse. Jan Ullrich waxed everyone with one incredible ride. Anyone who doubted him before the Tour started probably changed their thinking after today. He definitely came to France ready to ride. I think we're

Speechless

None of the six climbs on this classic 191.5km mountain stage is particularly long or high, but six hours of racing in potentially adverse weather will be a challenge. The three climbs in the last 70km, all Cat. 1, are the most difficult, particularly the narrow, winding Col de Menté, which averages 8.2 percent for 7km. This will soften up the field for the 8.3km Portillon (that comes during a brief foray into Spain) and the 13km Peyresourde, from which the race plunges to the finish in Loudenvielle. 7/20/2003 Start Time: 11:15:00am7/20/2003 Estimated Finish Time: 5:26:00pm HISTORY All

To see how Stage 12 of the Tour unfolded live, just go to our Live Update window and follow the action all the way to the finish.

'Harder than I anticipated'

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....