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When the Tour de France visited L’Alpe d’Huez two years ago, Lance Armstrong destroyed his opposition by a two–minute margin and virtually put his third Tour win on ice. That’s far from the case this year. In Sunday’s spectacular alpine stage, the defending champion was attacked from all quarters and it was the Texan who conceded the two minutes to an explosive Iban Mayo — the 25-year-old Euskaltel-Euskadi rider who already pushed Armstrong to the limit in taking second place at last month’s Dauphiné Libéré. You could say that Armstrong and his U.S. Postal-Berry Floor team were

Lance Armstrong loves to win, but he knows it is better to concede some battles in the effort to win the war. When he has a great day, Lance can leave everyone behind with one hard attack, but today wasn’t great and it became clear to him early on in the Alp d’Huez climb that the best strategy was to ride defensively. Lance went into Stage 8 intending to attack on Alp d’Huez and put as much time as possible into his main rivals for the yellow jersey. The US Postal Service set him up perfectly to do just that, setting a blistering pace up the initial slopes of the mountain. Their efforts

This was the one everyone was waiting for. At 219km, the stage from Sallanches to L'alpe D’huez was the fourth longest of this Tour, but it was, by a long stretch, the toughest so far. Of the five climbs, two are among the toughest (and most famous) in the world: the hors categorie 2645-meter Col du Galibier (the highest point of the entire race) and the much-feared 1850-meter L' Alpe d'Huez. To take on a day like this, both riders and their equipment needed to be ready for the seemingly endless climbs as well as heart-stopping descents. Here's a look at some of the equipment the riders

It’s one of the most overused adjectives when it comes to mountain-bike racing, but in this case “epic” really did apply. With heavy rain moving in and out all day, and a legitimately tough course serving as the stage, the fourth stop of the UCI World Cup concluded with a pair of cross-country races that produced enough drama to fill a week of daytime television. When it was all done, the day’s heroes were Norwegian Gunn-Rita Dahle and Belgian Roel Paulissen, each taking World Cup victories after spending full days at the front. For Paulissen, the win was a long time coming, erasing his name

A great injustice has occurred on the Tour de France and not a soul has stood up to make a point of it. By doing so now, I’ll probably find out why lips have remained tight. Basically, Tour history has stiffed the person who should be credited with founding the Tour. And it took today’s stage 8 from Sallanches to L’Alpe d’Huez to highlight that omission. As the stage passed the 2654-meter summit of the Galibier after 157km and we began the long descent, looking to the right we saw the massive stone monument dedicated to Henri Desgrange. Known as H.D (pronounced “ash-day” in French) to his

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday night was a pretty low point for me and everyone on the CSC team. But here we are seven days later, reflecting on a day we couldn’t have imagined was possible. It's impossible to explain the range of emotions this team has been through since the start of the Tour. But everyone has rallied around me and my effort to continue. I don't know where I'd be without their support. My being able to stay in this race has been the result of a full and collective effort by all the riders and staff. Everyone has tried to stay as positive as possible.

The final stage of the Cascade Cycling Classic, a 1km afternoon criterium, was held Sunday in Bend, Oregon, and as expected, Saturn’s Tom Danielson and Lyne Bessette held onto their overall leads, with Bessette and Alex Candelario (Prime Alliance) winning the stage. Held in the town’s Old Mill district, the flat five-corner criterium offered no real possibility for changes in the general classification: Bessette held a near five-minute lead on second-placed Heather Albert (Team Basis), while Danielson’s 49-seond lead over Jonathon Vaughters (Prime Alliance) was protected by the strongest

Swiss rider Nicole Brandli won the 2003 Giro d’Italia Femminile in dramatic fashion on Sunday, overtaking Edita Pucinskaite on the final day of the race to win by a scant 17 seconds. Trailing by five seconds heading into the 22.9km stage 9 time trial, Brandli put enough time on her Lithuanian rival to take the final pink jersey in Venice. The Giro had become a two-woman race after the mountainous stage 3, won by Brandli, when Pucinskaite assumed the race lead with the Swiss just five seconds behind. Following that came a sprinting display by German Regina Schleicher, who posted four

No stage win, but Armstrong got a bigger prize

Ullrich lost 1:24 to Armstrong on the climb

Fast company

American fans on Alpe d' Huez, from Seattle and Atlanta

Courage, climbing Alpe d'Huez with one leg

French fans in turn 3 entertained all of us for hours

views of the north side of Galibier

Biggest Lance fan on Alpe d'Huez, a Brit!

Member of the cycling monastary

Road painting for Lance in Turn 1

views of the north side of Galibier

Virenque Fan Club on Galibier

Simoni's new ride

Stage 8 Tour Tech: Gear for the toughest of days

Stage 8 Tour Tech: Gear for the toughest of days

Dahle was on cruise control all day.

Stage 8 Tour Tech: Gear for the toughest of days

Stage 8 Tour Tech: Gear for the toughest of days

Jakshe's Giant

The 'Lance is human' t-shirts go on sale tomorrow

Stage 8 Tour Tech: Gear for the toughest of days

The great HD left a mark on the Tour, but does he deserve all of the credit?

Merckx went on the attack on the way to the Télégraphe, but faded fast

Postal took command up the Galibier

Rous and Astarloza led the way on to l'Alpe

Mayo gives it everything

Vinokourov held on to take second

Virenque had Rogers' company up the final climb

The women's final podium: Johnson, Bessette, Albert

Candelario stays glued to Horner's wheel

The men's final podium:Wherry, Danielson, Vaughters

Paulissen survived to grab his first World Cup win.

Attrition.

Green digging out a tool (yes he had his own) to fix his cleat.

Hermida powers to a second-place finish.

Horgan-Kobelski looks for his line.

Haywood was at her best.

Richard Virenque of Quick Step-Davitamon left behind a shaky past - not to mention the rest of the Tour de France peloton - to experience a dream day in the 2003 Tour's first big mountain stage. The Frenchman, disgraced after his role in the Festina scandal at the 1998 Tour, rebounded in Saturday's hot, steamy mountains opener in the French Alps to win the stage, grab the King of the Mountains jersey and take the overall lead. "Something magical happened to me today," said Virenque, who finished 2:29 ahead of Rolf Aldag (Telekom) after a 190km-long break. "I was going for the King of the

With the Tour raging on less than 100km away, it seems fitting that Shimano chose the sleepy salt-mining town of Bex, Switzerland, to hold its official Dura-Ace unveiling. As the Japanese group gets thoroughly put through its paces by the world's fastest racers just over the Swiss border in France, a few journalists are quietly getting the official lowdown on the high-end group. And while many of its technical details are already known, this is the first opportunity for us to ride the next-generation road group. The sleek new Dura-Ace boasts some pretty bold promises. Shimano claims its

As the Tour de France climbs into the Alps for three mountain stages, Marco Pantani – one of the greatest climbers in the history of cycling and winner of the 1998 Tour de France – is back on his bike for the first time since he left a drug and depression clinic. Pantani, who spent the second half of June in the clinic near Venice, looked well as he rode his bike for an hour and half near his home in Cesenatico on Friday. He refused to speak as he headed home from his ride, but La Gazzetta dello Sport suggested he could be training ready to make a return to racing at the Tour of Spain in

Stage 7 Individual Results1. Richard Virenque (F), Quick Step-Davitamon, 6:06:032. Rolf Aldag (G), Telekom, 02:293. Sylvain Chavanel (F), Brioches La Boulangere, 03:454. Michael Rogers (Aus), Quick Step-Davitamon, 04:035. Stefano Garzelli (I), Caldirola, 04:066. Christophe Moreau (F), Credit Agricole, 04:067. Laurent Dufaux (Swi), Alessio, 04:068. David Millar (GB), Cofidis, 04:069. Georg Totschnig (A), Gerolsteiner, 04:0610. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), Telekom, 04:0611. Mikel Astarloza (Sp), Ag2R Prevoyance, 04:0612. Guido Trentin (I), Cofidis, 04:0613. Grischa Niermann (G), Rabobank,

Olympic champion Florian Rousseau failed to qualify for the world track cycling championships when he finished in 11th place in the keirin event at the French trials in Hyeres on Saturday. Rousseau, who won Olympic gold in the keirin event at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia, had also missed out on selection for the sprint event when he finished fourth in the trials on Thursday. Only the first three were picked for the championships, which take place in Stuttgart, Germany, from July 30 to August 3. –Copyright 2003/AFP

Saeco team riders were all handed a 200 Swiss francs ($146.3) fine by Tour de France organisers for sporting white jerseys with a publicity slogan instead of their regular red team kits in Saturday's stage to Morzine. The Italian team wanted to use a new carbon-aluminum Cannondale for the mountains that weighs in at 6.6 kilograms, 200 grams lighter than the UCI minimum of 6.8kg. The UCI imposed the minimum standard three years ago for what the governing body says were safety reasons. To protest at the limitation, Saeco riders sported jerseys asking UCI to "legalize my Cannondale." Saeco

Seeing a 40-strong group ride into Morzine with Lance Armstrong at the end of the Tour’s first mountain stage on Saturday was quite a surprise — especially after the Postal team leader’s three Spanish climbers had turned on the screws up the Cat. 1 Col de la Ramaz, 25km from the end. But looking back to the action on the Ramaz, we saw three of Armstrong’s billed rivals — Italian Gilberto Simoni, Colombian Santiago Botero and Spaniard Aitor Gonzales — fall back and concede up to six minutes on the defending champion. It was a shock to see those three struggling while American Tyler Hamilton

What a day the seventh stage into the Alps turned out to be. To finish with my Quickstep-Davitamon teammate Richard Virenque winning the first mountain stage and taking the yellow jersey - and me "passing" my first test in the Alps - it couldn't have been better. Firstly, a few words about Richard. I said the other day he has given me a fair bit of advice and inside knowledge about the mountains. He proved today that his word is good. He told me this morning at breakfast that he was going to go for the stage win. He said he was going to attack on the first kilometer of the first climb,

On the morning of Saturday July 12, had you called up your bike-race bookie (if such a person existed) and told him you wanted some action on the five-rider World Cup podium parlay of downhillers Gary Houseman, Ivan Oulego, Kirt Voreis, Colin Bailey and Stu Thomson, Mr. Bookie would have laughed, then given you some astronomically high odds figuring he’d just made a quick buck. But when it comes to downhill racing, there’s one factor that even the world’s wisest odds makers (or best riders) cannot completely account for — rain. And that’s just what happened on the steep slopes of British

There are all sorts you meet on the route of the Tour de France. People, that is. Many of them you forget as days, weeks and years pass. Others remain etched in your mind. Today, I fear, may be the latter. Had we filled the gas tank of our car earlier, rather than after the emergency light had been flickering for 50km, those fears would not exist. Finding service stations in France is not as easy as it sounds, and even less so on the Tour route. Filling stations are either closed, blocked off by barriers or take French-only credit cards. But we felt lucky today, 85km into stage 7 from Lyon

Four-time stage winner Alessandro Petacchi said he retired from the Tour de France early on Saturday's first mountain stage because he would never have made it to the end of the race. Though the Tour ends in Paris on July 27, the Italian climbed off his bike 45km into the 230km seventh stage to Morzine after being left behind by the main field. "I always said my form wasn't that good for the Tour de France," Petacchi said. "I didn't plan to retire but I was struggling on the very first climb. I knew it would have been impossible to make it to the finish of the stage, and I knew I could

Lance Armstrong warned the rest of the Tour de France Saturday that he was gearing up to win cycling's biggest race for a record-equaling fifth time. The American allowed Frenchman Richard Virenque to take Saturday's first mountain stage at Morzine, along with the yellow jersey, but then said he was setting out to win the race, starting with Sunday's eighth stage climb up L'Alpe d'Huez. "For me, the Tour started today," the U.S. Postal Service leader told reporters. "In the first week of the race you're not riding to win, you're just trying to stay out of trouble and not lose it. Now it's

The yellow-and-red of the Saturn Cycling dynasty remains atop the general classification at the Cascade Cycling Classic, with Tom Danielson and Lyne Bessette all but assured victories heading into Sunday’s final criterium stage after a Friday night criterium and Saturday’s hilly circuit race. The Twilight ZoneA volatile twilight criterium held Friday night in downtown Bend, Oregon, yielded no change in the overall, with Heather Albert (Team Basis) and Chris Horner (Saturn) taking the stage wins. Bessette powered off the front halfway through the women’s 45-minute race, followed by Albert

Winning the Tour de France requires a balance of patience and aggression, and on the first mountain stage today, Lance and U.S. Postal Service chose to remain patient. Armstrong wasn’t the only man waiting to show his true strength. His main rivals, Jan Ullrich and Joseba Beloki rode quietly today as well, but tomorrow each man will be forced to lay his cards on the table. Quickstep’s Richard Virenque was Stage Seven’s main aggressor, attacking early and gaining enough time and mountain points to take both the yellow and polka dot jerseys. Virenque wore the yellow jersey briefly eleven years