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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 -

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

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

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

First, a question or two: Dear Lennard,The Liberty Seguros shifters: What’s up with them? They aren't any Campy ones I've seen before. Are they the 2006 edition? I first noticed them on the stage to Courcheval.Ignacio Dear Lennard,I noticed today while watching the Tour that Liberty Seguros's Record shifters didn't look all carbon. They appeared to have a metallic streak of some sort near the top of the actual shift lever. Did you see anything like that? The rider’s bike I saw was Jorg Jaksche's. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, as I was going crazy with Lance

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

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

Stage 10 - Grenoble to Courchevel >192.5KM

Stage 10 - Grenoble to Courchevel >192.5KM

Valverde celebrates

Valverde nicks Armstrong at the line

Hammer time

Ullrich crosses the line more than two minutes later

Discovery on the job

Armstrong gives Popo the word

Vino' cracked on the second climb

Voight kisses the jersey goodbye

Lance back in command

Allez, Allez, Cadel!

Valverde leads the select group

Valverde impressed the champ with his tenacity

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

Bike fans...

Are you ready, Freddie?

We wonder what country these guys are from.

Welcome to LanceLand

Room with a view

A little Bocce Ball to pass the time

Horner held his own on the climb to Courchevel

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.

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

Liberty's custom-painted Record levers

Another angle

The team's BH bike

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

First, a question: Dear Lennard,What does Jens Voigt carry in his seat bag? Do any of the other TdF riders carry a seat bag?Steve C. Dear Steve,That is the transmitter that sends telemetric data live from Voigt's SRM. And yes, some of the other Tour riders are doing the same thing. Voig, Matthias Kessler (T-Mobile), Gerrit Glomser (Lampre) and Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner) all have been wired for live SRM data on various stages. This is one of the (few) benefits of the UCI weight limit on bikes; since the riders can have bikes below the limit, they can add components of their choosing

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's FSA-SRM crank

CSC's nifty new Cervélo Soloist Carbons

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

A train of light-green jerseys swept through Bend's Old Mill District on Sunday, as Scott Moninger of Health Net-Maxxis cruised behind his teammates to secure his fourth overall victory in the Cascade Cycling Classic. Moninger, who had an 11-second lead on Navigators' Cesar Grajales coming into Sunday's Old Mill District Criterium, stayed with his team in the front of the main pack on the tight, 1.2km loop. "That's two days in a row they've just absolutely ridden amazing," Moninger said of his five teammates. "They were going so fast the last four or five laps, I

After talking with her teammate Ina Yoko Teutenberg the other night, Kristin Armstrong of T-Mobile knew it was coming. She knew Teutenberg would put on a display of raw power en route to winning the Old Mill District Criterium in Bend on Sunday, lapping the field with teammate Katie Mactier. Teutenberg's second victory of the Cascade Cycling Classic – she also won Friday's Twilight Criterium - also helped secure the overall victory for Armstrong in the women's portion of the Cascade Cycling Classic. "We were all talking and Ina goes: 'You know what? I haven't lapped the

Dry, dusty winds and a rocky, technical cross-country course, coupled with the formidable altitude of New Mexico's Angel Fire Resort couldn’t derail the efforts of Swiss Christoph Sauser (Siemens-Cannondale) and Norway’s Gunn-Rita Dahle (Multivan-Merida) to repeat their titles as overall World Cup cross-country champions as they won the first World Cup cross-country race on American soil in three years on Sunday. “It was a very hard race, I had a hard time breathing at some points. Lots of suffering,” said Dahle. “I was still very tired from the Brazil race.” Despite her fatigue, Dahle

Stage 9 - Gérardmer to Mulhouse >171km

Stage 9 - Gérardmer to Mulhouse >171km

CSC gets the jersey back

Armstrong doesn't need that jersey - not right now

Moreau and Voigt work together

Chicken Run: Rasmussen on his own

Rasmussen has dreamed of this day

Armstrong's teammates were back on the job Sunday

Wake me when they get here . . .

T-Mobile fans are prevalent

Christophe Moreau and Voight on the final climb

Popovych leads Discovery in the chase

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

Riders flash by on the descent from Col de Grosse Pierre

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

Chicken becomes the Energizer Bunny with this win

Voigt and Moreau cooperated all the way to the finish

Rasmussen takes a gamble

Does France have renewed hope?

Rasmussen gets company, but only for a while

Moreau breaks up the chase group