Road

Defending Tour champion Carlos Sastre said Monday he would be choosing his moments carefully when the Tour de France moves up a gear next week in the Alps. "Astana are the strongest team in the race at the moment, and when it comes to the Alps next week it is up to us (rivals) to react to whatever they decide to do," Sastre said Monday on the race's first rest day. The deficits of Astana's direct rivals range from the 1:49 of Luxembourg's Andy Schleck, of Saxo Bank, to the 3:07 held by two-time runner-up Cadel Evans.

As the son of one of cycling's greats, Nicolas Roche knows he has plenty to live up to. And after a tough first nine stages of racing on his Tour de France debut, the France-born Irish national road race champion is not expecting the race to get any easier. Roche, the son of former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia champion Stephen, has spent the past few days in the unexpected position of battling to keep teammate Rinaldo Nocentini in the race's yellow jersey.

Lance Armstrong's impressive form on this year's Tour de France may have taken some people by surprise, but Saxo Bank leader Andy Schleck insisted Monday the American can win an eighth title. The 24-year-old Luxemburger is 1:49 behind Italian yellow jersey holder Rinaldo Nocentini. But Schleck says Armstrong, the seven-time champion who is participating for the first time since retiring in 2005, can win the Tour - and ominously for his rivals - is getting stronger.

Michael Rogers dropped his chain off the small chainring in the stage one time trial, not once, but twice, forcing him to dismount and put it back on. He was on a Scott Plasma3, as were all his teammates, and he was using a Shimano Dura Ace Di2 grouppo, the same as on all the team TT bikes. What went wrong? According to team mechanic Perry Moerman, a relatively last-minute equipment change, compounded by the nature of Di2 front shifting, conspired to cause the problem. Normally, Di2 is set up and programmed to shift perfectly between a 53- and a 39-tooth chainring.

While Alberto Contador was being grilled by a 250-strong media throng at the Novotel Limoges on Monday afternoon, a small group of six reporters sat around a table with Brad Wiggins at the Campanile hotel barely 500 meters away. And that’s how the lean, long Brit likes it: no pressure, having fun. You wouldn’t know he’s in fifth overall, the closest challenger to Contador’s (and Lance Armstrong’s) Astana team, and sitting only seven seconds behind fourth-placed Levi Leipheimer.

The pain of stopping a race – there are few things in our professional lives as painful, as frustrating, as depressing and as loaded with the sense of failure. That said, there are plenty of one-day races where you toe the line with a specific job, and that role doesn’t even put you remotely near the finish line. But those are different: You start with no thought of finishing. You’re there to get IT done, “it” being whatever your charge is on that given day.

I love rest days! Nothing feels quite as luxurious as spending an entire day lying around doing nothing after nine days of racing. I have been trying to make the most (or maybe I should say the least) of my day off. A little spin in the morning to loosen up the legs and then a lot of time getting acquainted with my bed. I'm sure it's going to be game on from kilometer zero again tomorrow, so I need all the recovery I can get!

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Looking forward to the radio ban

Alberto Contador said Monday if the tables are turned in the Alps, he would not chase down an attacking Lance Armstrong in a solo move. The Spanish climber suggested he would adhere to the cycling code that says never chase down an attacking teammate on a summit finish, opening the door for the next round in the struggle for team leadership at the Astana squad. “If we arrive to a mountain stage and Lance attacks, I will not follow him,” Contador said when asked by VeloNews at a rest-day press conference. “There are other riders who have to chase him down.”

Yellow jersey contender Cadel Evans is clinging on to the hope that he will resurrect his Tour de France bid at the end of this week when the race heads back into the mountains. But Evans, who after nine of the race's 21 stages is three minutes behind main rivals Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, admits it will be hard to find a way around the mighty Astana team. "We had some bad luck in the team time time trial that has put me in a frustrating position in the general classification," said Evans on Monday on the race's rest day.

As the Tour de France wraps up its first week of racing on the lower slopes of the Pyrénées, it seems the racing action among the general classification favorites has been put on hold for a while. Stages 8 and 9 had similar scripts — allow a lead break of non-GC contenders to escape, race the major Category 1 climbs at a cautious pace, and limit all losses.

All the beers have been cheered and bloody scrapes Band-Aided for yet another installment of the Downieville Classic mountain bike race. The second and final stage of the Northern California testpiece went down Sunday afternoon as competitors took off at one-minute intervals to attack a plummeting 17-mile Super-D style course that climbed a mere 1,000 feet while descending 5,333 feet into the streets of Downieville, a quaint mining town one hour north of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Foothills.

Columbia-HTC sport director Ralf Aldag is content with the opening week of the 2009 Tour de France. Two stage victories by Mark Cavendish and runs in the green and white jerseys bode well for the U.S.-registered team heading into the last two weeks of the race. The team took stock on Monday’s rest day as it prepares to head toward the Alps with all options on the table. While the team’s GC hopes have taken a blow, the team is quietly optimistic Kim Kirchen will find his best form in the decisive final week.

The ongoing debate over the use of radios between riders and team directors will take center stage at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s stage from Limoges to Issoudon. In response to the chorus of complaints that the rise of race radios has made the sport too predictable and formulaic, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organisation asked the UCI management committee to agree to a directive banning radios on two stages, meaning virtual radio silence for both Tuesday and again on Friday's 200km route from Vittel to Colmar.

Spain's two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso is planning to create a cycling team headed by his compatriot Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour de France winner, a Spanish newspaper reported on Monday. According to a report in the sports daily Marca, Alonso has already discussed the project with Contador. Contador, however, brushed off the story as speculative. "I only want to focus on the Tour de France, I will talk about my future after that," said the Astana team leader. "This is only a rumor and I have a contract with Astana for another year."

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There's always something going on at the Tour de France, even on days when the GC contenders call a truce, and none of it escapes the long lens of our man Casey B. Gibson.

Lance Armstrong conceded on French television Sunday that “there’s a little tension” between himself and Astana teammate Alberto Contador. The seven-time Tour champion sits in third overall, eight seconds behind Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who is not considered a yellow jersey contender. Contador, the 2007 champion, is in the runner-up spot at six seconds back. As their rivals look for ways to close deficits incurred in a thrilling first week, it seems the real battle for supremacy may be taking place in one team.

When the first phase of the 96th Tour de France ended on Sunday with a near 80-man field sprint (on a mountain stage!), we knew that the race leaders were already looking ahead to the final week. They all know that the stages in the Alps, followed by a time trial at Annecy and the penultimate day’s finish on Mont Ventoux, are going to decide this Tour’s outcome — and that the middle week between Monday’s rest day in Limoges and next Sunday’s stage 15 finish in Verbier, Switzerland, is just a period in which to tick things over.

Lance Armstrong on Sunday backed a protest by 15 of the 20 teams in this year’s Tour de France teams over plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Armstrong's Astana team is one of 15 to have signed the petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13, which was submitted on Saturday; French outfit Cofidis added its riders’ signatures on Sunday. "I don't agree with it (the radio ban)," said seven-times Tour winner Armstrong.

Veteran sprinter Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushrooms) lit up the night at the fifth annual Iron Hill Twilight Criterium Saturday, taking the win and the lead in the USA Crits series. In the men's race at the Westchester, Pennsylvania, event, Luca Damiani (Colavita-Sutter Home) took a hard-fought victory from a field of hardcore sprinters. Tom Soladay (Team Mountain Khakis) took the lead in the men's USA CRITS overall standings.

Early break in the women's race

Pierrick Fedrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) countered a late attack by fellow breakaway Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) to win stage 9 of the 2009 Tour de France on Sunday. The two were the survivors of a 13-rider break that went clear early on in the 160.5km race from Saint Gaudens to Tarbes, which took in two of the most storied climbs of this part of France, the Category 1 Col d’Aspin and the hors categorie Col du Tourmalet.

Lance Armstrong believes six days of hard climbing will reveal whether he, or teammate Alberto Contador, will emerge as Astana's real yellow jersey contender in the Tour de France. Heading into stage 9 Sunday, seven-time champion Armstrong was only two seconds behind 2007 winner Contador in the race's overall classification. With another two teammates, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden, in the top ten, Astana will be the team to beat when the race heads towards the Vosges and Alps mountains next week.

Day one of the legendary Downieville Classic Mountain Bike Race is in the record books with more than 800 riders having faced up to the grueling 29-mile point-to-point cross-country race – stage one of Downieville’s hotly contested All-Mountain World Championship. Giant's Adam Craig was the hot shot of the day as he casually destroyed the course record and took the All-Mountain pro men’s stage victory. Pedaling into the streets of Downieville in 1:52:04, Craig’s time bested reigning All-Mountain champion Ross Schnell’s record-setting 2008 performance by nearly five minutes.

This year’s Tour de France is laid out so strangely that even though two of the toughest Pyrenean climbs, the Aspin and Tourmalet, are included in Sunday’s stage 9 they will be virtually marginalized. That’s because from the top of the Tourmalet — the most difficult climb in the Tour’s first two weeks — to the finish in Tarbes is a yawningly long 70 kilometers. So any contenders who make a move on the hors-catégorie mountain and gain even as much as three minutes are sure to be caught — unless something extraordinary occurs.

Olympic pursuit king Bradley Wiggins has moved to end doubts surrounding his superb form on the Tour de France by insisting his performances are not drugs-related. The Garmin-Slipstream rider started and finished the eighth stage of the race Saturday in fifth place overall at 46 seconds behind overnight race leader Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r-La Mondiale), who is being trailed by Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. As part of a team aiming to put Christian Vande Velde into race contention after his fifth place finish last year, Wiggins has so far stolen most of the

Cadel Evans just can’t catch a break in this Tour de France, even when he tries to break away. To the surprise of many, the two-time Tour runner-up went on a daring, potentially dangerous attack on the first climb up the Cat. 1 Port d’Envalira in the opening 23km of Saturday’s 176.5km eighth stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons. But instead of riding away from his rivals and bouncing back into contention, all he caught was grief.

Repeating the top of the leader sheet from the previous year, 30-year-old Anthony Colby and 46-year-old Marti Shea won Newton’s Revenge, a 7.6-mile bike race to the summit of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the northeastern United States.

After a brief foray into Spain and Andorra, the Tour de France has returned home. Photographer Casey Gibson was there for stage 8.

Top Tour de France teams will protest plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Johan Bruyneel, the team manager of Astana which includes yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, has described the decision as "unjustified and unacceptable". Astana is one of 14 teams who have already signed a petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13 and will submit it later Saturday.

Stage 7 between Barcelona and Arcalis in Andorra was the first major test of the Tour de France, and would ultimately show who had arrived in Spain prepared to fight to the end in Paris. Even though there are still many more category 1 and hors category climbs to be raced in this year’s Tour, Arcalis was the first major obstacle.

As you probably know, I have never raced in the Tour de France, but I think it’s a safe bet to say Friday’s final Breck Epic stage is kind of like rolling into Paris along the Champs-Élysées after many hard days of racing.

Until reaching Barcelona and heading for the Pyrénées, the first six days of the Tour de France were held in hot weather. Road races in the heat present challenges for riders and staff in terms of hydration and electrolyte supplementation. But because “warming up” for the race usually happens in the first few kilometers, overheating isn’t a factor.

Caisse d'Epargne's Luis Leon Sanchez won Saturday's second day in the Pyrenees, a 176-km romp from Andora back into France for the start of the race's second week. Sanchez was part of a nearly day-long break that shook down to just four men rolling into Saint Girons. He smartly monitored a late attack by Ag2r's Vladimir Efimkin and benefited from Sandy Casar's too-early jump to take a solid win less than two minutes ahead of the main field.

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Alberto Contador just couldn’t help himself on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit high in the Pyrénées in Friday’s seventh stage. The 26-year-old is a natural born climber and, when he sees a road turn uphill, he’s going to do one thing: attack, even if that means attacking Astana teammate Lance Armstrong and defying team orders. “There were no instructions from the car (to attack),” said Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. “We wanted to try to maintain our collective strength and wait for the attacks to come. Those attacks didn’t come.”

Just five teams are still in contention to deliver the winner of this excruciatingly tense 96th Tour de France. And these five do not include Ag2r-La Mondiale, the French team of the new race leader Rinaldo Nocentini. He was far from being the strongest man in Friday’s successful long-shot breakaway and he will certainly fall back into the ranks on Saturday.

After a spectacular morning start in downtown Barcelona, the Tour de France moved into the even more spectacular Pyrenees. Casey Gibson was there to follow all of the action

Two Tour de France rookies on opposite ends of their careers hogged the spotlight Friday in the Pyrénées. While the GC favorites marked each other up the Tour’s first of three summit finishes, Brice Feillu and Rinaldo Nocentini took full advantage of the opportunity. Feillu, 23, best-known as the younger brother of sprinter Romain Feillu, attacked out of a nine-man breakaway to win France’s second stage in three days while Nocentini, 31, an Italian roulleur familiar to American fans for his stage victory during this year’s Tour of California, snagged the yellow jersey.

It usually takes a highly-publicized doping scandal to bring Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme to the brink of tears. But on Friday it was 24-year-old debutant Brice Feillu, giving the hosts their second stage victory of the race, who brought the emotions flooding out after an impressive ride to victory on the first day in the mountains. Feillu, a specialist climber who rides for Agritubel with his brother Romain, took his chance by attacking his small group of breakaway companions inside the final 6km of the 10.1km climb to Arcalis.

Agritubel’s Brice Feillu attacked his daylong breakaway companions to a stage win atop the hors catégorie Andorre Arcalis, as Astana’s Alberto Contador rocketed away from the main group to put time into his rivals for the overall. Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who joined Feillu in the day’s big breakaway, held on to finish in between Feillu and Contador to take the yellow jersey.

#ad-in-article {display: none;}New Hampshire's Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb has long enjoyed the reputation as the toughest hour (or two) on two wheels. The race to the top of "The Rockpile," rising an unrelenting 4,720 feet in 7.6 miles, with an average grade of 12 percent and some hellish sections as steep as 22 percent, is the ultimate test of legs, lungs and willpower.

Now, double that effort. Better yet, how about tackling nine races, in four different Northeast states, totaling 27,000 feet of climbing?

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A soaked but otherwise happy Cadel Evans indicated he is ready to meet his Tour de France rivals head on when the race heads for its first summit finish in the Pyrenees on Friday. However Australia's two-time runner-up faces a bigger test than the slippery roads which led the peloton from Girona to Barcelona on Thursday, on which compatriot Michael Rogers almost saw his Tour end prematurely. Evans had joined the frontrunners in pursuit of Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar, who was caught inside two kilometers, having attacked solo a three-man breakaway with 29km to race.

Stage 5 of the Tour de France was another seaside route along the French coast with brutal crosswinds. However, unlike stage 3, Team Saxo Bank and Chris Anker Sorensen were prepared and present at the front of the race when it counted. The final 50 miles of the stage were raced at full throttle and Chris set new personal-best Tour de France power records to prove it. 

As part of a $430 million budget-reduction plan, the State of Missouri has frozen $1.5 million slated for the Sept. 7-13 Tour of Missouri. Race officials were notified Thursday of the financial situation, which if not remedied would cancel this year’s event. “We are very surprised and shocked that this has happened,” said Chris Aronholt, managing partner of Medalist Sports, which runs the Tour of Missouri. “We have a signed contract. This is the third year of a three-year commitment.”

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Germany's Tony Martin is hoping toemulate compatriot Jan Ullrich by wearing the Tour de France's white jersey all the way to Paris as he prepares to defend it through the Pyrenees this weekend. The 24-year-old Columbia rider has held the prize for the best placed U25 rider since the end of Monday's third stage, and finished Thursday's 181.5km race into Barcelona with the shirt still on his back. Martin, whose parents fled Hungary in 1989 after the fall of the Iron Curtain and settled in the former East German city of Cottbus, has spent the

And it all comes down to Arcalis. After months of speculation, mind-games and maneuvering, the much-anticipated showdown between Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador will finally unfold on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit in the principality of Andorra. Or will it? It’s all but impossible to read the tea leaves on what will happen in Friday’s 224km seventh stage.

There have been very few “down” moments in this 96th Tour de France. All of the first six stages have thrown different challenges at the 180 starters, and it’s a testament to today’s breed of pro cyclists that only three of them have so far dropped out — and all due to crashes.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar went out on the attack on Thursday’s stage from Girona to Barcelona.

Photographer Casey Gibson was there when the Tour de France left Girona and at the finish when Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd takes a big win in Barcelona, capital city of Spain's Catalonia region.

Thor Hushovd’s sprint victory up Montjuic gave a huge boost to the start-up Cervélo TestTeam just as the continental squad prepares to lead defending champion Carlos Sastre into the Pyrénées starting with Friday’s stage to Arcalis. The sprinting Viking out-kicked three-time world champion Oscar Freire to claim his seventh career Tour stage win and deliver the Canadian-sponsored continental team a prestigious victory in its first-ever Tour de France.

Rabobank's Denis Menchov saw his yellow jersey hopes all but evaporate in the rain of Barcelona where he ended the sixth stage of the Tour de France nearly five minutes in arrears. Menchov, the recent Giro d'Italia champion who began this year's Tour as a contender, is now 4:54 behind race leader Fabian Cancellara after Thursday's 181.5km crash-marred ride to Barcelona. Cancellara's grip on the yellow jersey could loosen on Friday's seventh stage which heads up to Andorra in the Pyrenees, where Lance Armstrong, only 0.22secs behind in second place, could be the man to replace him.

Australian Michael Rogers was among the big name riders who crashed on the rain-hit sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday. Rogers, riding for the Columbia team, appeared to take down Cervelo sprinter Heinrich Haussler and American David Zabriskie of Garmin as the peloton negotiated a roundabout. The Australian, who finished ninth overall in 2006 but had to abandon after a serious crash on the eighth stage in 2007, was later taken to hospital for X-rays complaining of a sore elbow.

Tour stages tend to follow a pretty established routine at the start. Riders arrive in team busses, which park in a fenced-off paddock with direct access to the start line. Bikes, both those that will be used in the race and spares, arrive on the roof racks of team cars. There are usually four or five team vehicles in total. The mechanics who ride in the team cars with spare wheels are on hand at the start, but the trucks with most of the spare parts, wheels, and shop supplies drive directly to the team hotel at the stage finish.

On a day of crashes, wet roads and rolling climbs, Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd powered his way to a sprint win ahead of three-time world champion Oscar Freire (Rabobank). Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar survived from an early breakaway until the final kilometer, where the lanky time trialist was reeled in as the course kicked sharply upwards. Although not a categorized climb, the pitch hit 6.6 percent before easing off near the finish, and was enough to shake points leader Mark Cavendish (Columbia-HTC) from his position near the front.

Columbia-HTC's Judith Arndt won stage 6 of the GiroDonne (the women's Giro d'Italia) on Thursday, the team's third stage win so far. Cervelo TestTeam's Claudia Hausler took the overall lead, but the win for Arndt moved her into second and teammate Mara Abbot is now in third.

So, for the last few days I have been blabbing on and on about how much fun the Breck Epic is and how great the courses are, right? Well, today was a different story. Today’s loop was long and hard. There were no smiles while winding through smooth, twisty singletrack like days prior. Instead I was grinding my teeth and begging for mercy.

Top professional and amateur men’s and women’s teams will take to the streets of West Chester, PA for the 5th Annual Iron Hill Twilight Criterium on July 11, 2009, the second event on the USA CRITS National Series calendar. In attendance will be last year's winner, Mark Hekman, riding for Team Mountain Khakis. The 2009 season for this professional bassoonist turned pro cyclists has been spectacular, with top 5 finishes at Tulsa Tough and the Kelly Cup, as well as a 2nd place finish at the Athens Twilight Criterium. The illusive win, however, has escaped him thus far.

Australian Michael Rogers will head into the sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday fully expecting the battle for the yellow jersey to soon move up a gear. But while Columbia's second-in-command has for now played down his own chances of challenging for the yellow jersey, he does not expect Lance Armstrong's Astana team to try and distance their main rivals just yet. "Of course they're in an ideal position right now. They have cards to play but I don't think they'll play them until the later half of the second week," Rogers told AFP on Wednesday.

Mark Cavendish's domination of the Tour de France bunch sprints is likely set to come to an end, temporarily at least, on the race's sixth stage which ends at Barcelona's Olympic stadium on Thursday. A day before the first summit finish of the race at Arcalis in Andorra, the Tour heads over more challenging undulating terrain, with an uphill finish likely tempting the peloton's 'punchers.'

Reigning Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre has put a positive spin on Cervelo's chances of defending his yellow jersey, claiming they would now employ a "happy, relaxed" approach. Sastre was one of several Tour contenders who on Tuesday's team time trial lost time to the Astana team of Lance Armstrong, who is now second overall just 0.22secs behind race leader Fabian Cancellara. Sastre's team finished a respectable eighth in the fourth stage race against the clock and, compared to fellow challengers Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov, Sastre's Cervelo team managed to limit their losses.

Cadel Evans admitted Wednesday he is still getting used to being so far behind in the race for the Tour de France yellow jersey before the race's crucia mountains stages have even started. Australia's two-time runner-up stayed out of trouble on Wednesday's tricky and wind-hit stage from Cap d'Agde to Perpignan, in which Silence teammate Matthew Lloyd escaped, unhurt, from a spill mid-race. Evans now goes into Thursday's sixth stage from Gerona to Barecelona in Spain 2:59 down on race leader Fabian Cancellara and second-placed Lance Armstrong.

Fabian Cancellara’s yellow jersey might be hanging by a thread, but it’s going to take more than a snip of scissors to take it away from him. Despite leading Lance Armstrong by just 0.22 seconds, Cancellara says that margin will be plenty to fend off the seven-time champion on the hilltop finish atop Montjuic overlooking Barcelona in Thursday’s stage 6.

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Sharp eyes might have noticed unfamiliar helmets on the heads of certain riders in Tuesday’s team time trial. At the start line, we spotted riders from the Astana and Garmin teams with new Giro-branded helmets. The Saxo Bank team, which is sponsored by Bell, also had new helmets, including a yellow one for Fabian Cancellara to match his leader’s jersey. Reportedly, other teams sponsored by Giro (including Rabobank and Caisse d’Epargne) are also wearing this new helmet in time trials.

Julian Dean says it’s only a matter of time before Tyler Farrar wins a stage at the Tour de France. The New Zealand veteran sprinter said Farrar might just be the man who gets past dominant sprinter Mark Cavendish. “I think he can win a stage at the Tour,” Dean said after Wednesday’s stage. “It won’t be easy. We just started working together at the Giro, but if we get our timing right, we can win.”

Covering a 200km stage across the wind-blown reaches of southern France means that some days you have to get lucky to get the right shot. Photographer Casey Gibson seemed to have a good day today.

Columba-HTC's Mark Cavendish tightened his grip on the Tour de France green jersey on Wednesday despite losing out on the chance to claim a third stage victory on this year's race. Cavendish, who stylishly won stages 2 and 3 from bunch sprints to take his tally on the race to six in three participations, was among those who fell victim to a vicious headwind as the peloton chased down an earlier breakaway.

Just a day after publicly apologizing for comments he made about the 2008 Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong told Carlos Sastre face-to-face he was sorry. On Wednesday, as Sastre rolled through the peloton during the neutral start congratulating members of the Astana team on their team time trial victory, Armstrong saddled up alongside. According to Sastre, the seven-time Tour champ told him he was sorry that he said the 2008 Tour was “a joke.”

The teams of Tour de France contenders Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov suffered further setbacks during the race's fifth stage on Wednesday. On the descent of the Cote de Treilles as the peloton upped the pace in chase of a six-man breakaway, 23-year-old Dutchman Robert Gesink crashed and picked up injuries to his wrist and left leg. He was later diagnosed with a fractured wrist and pulled out of the race by his Rabobank team, who have been left reeling with the relative demise of their yellow jersey contender Menchov.

Frenchman Thomas Voeckler scored a popular stage victory Wednesday in the fifth stage of the 96th Tour de France, a 196.5-kilometer (122-mile) race from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan. Voeckler (BBox Bouygues Telecom) was away in a six-man break for more than 180 kilometers, attacking the other five with about five kilometers to go and riding into Perpignan alone, with the chasing peloton in sight behind him at the finish line.

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Wow, what an exciting day of racing. There are simply no easy days in the Tour de France. On paper, Monday's stage 3 appeared to be a fairly routine flat stage for the sprinters, but it ended up being a detrimental day for some of the Tour’s overall favorites.

Lance Armstrong has an eighth Tour de France crown within his sights thanks to Astana’s domination in Tuesday’s team time trial, but he admitted that it won’t be easy. After barnstorming to seven straight Tour victories before retiring in 2005, Armstrong acknowledged Tuesday that trying to win for an unprecedented eighth time is more difficult than he expected.