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Armstrong was not impressed with Simoni's talk earlier in the Tour

Pyrenees Picnic

Green and Hesjedal cross Fitzsimmons Creek.

Simoni joined the right move

Hotel Auberge Catalane

Redden ended up second.

Cioni's 2003 Pinarello Dogma

Fasso car

The men's race was full tilt from the start.

Zabel and the Pinarello crew are just as Dogmatic as the Fassas

Cows and cyclists on backroad

It's good ... but it's just not OLN

Gilberto Simoni and Lance Armstrong ended up in the same camper van after Sunday's thrilling stage high in the French Pyrénées. The Italian and the American were hidden away inside the innocuous camper van behind the Tour de France winner's podium moments after crossing the finish line. It's a place for podium riders to wipe down, change their clothes, and catch their breath after a hard day of racing. Simoni was there after winning an exciting stage over six punishing climbs, while Armstrong was there after withstanding a dangerous attack by Alex Vinokourov who moved to within 18 seconds of

Col de la Core river

Individual Results for Stage 141. Gilberto Simoni (I), Saeco, 5:31:522. Laurent Dufaux (Swi), Alessio, 00:003. Richard Virenque (F), Quick Step-Davitamon, 00:004. Andrea Peron (I), CSC, 00:035. Walter Beneteau (F), Brioches La Boulangere, 00:106. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), Telekom, 00:417. Iban Mayo (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 00:418. Steve Zampieri (Swi), Caldirola, 00:419. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 01:2410. Ivan Basso (I), Fassa Bortolo, 01:2411. Lance Armstrong (USA), U.S. Postal Service, 01:2412. Jan Ullrich (G), Bianchi, 01:2413. Christophe Moreau (F), Credit Agricole,

The final three switchbacks, jammed with fans, on Col de Peysourde

To see how Stage 14 of the Tour unfolded live, just go to our Live Update window and follow the action all the way to the finish.

The ascent to Col de Mente

The descent from Col de la Core

Lance Armstrong has not yet won his fifth Tour de France, but Saturday marked his 52nd day in the race leader's yellow jersey – beating the total of five-times Tour champion Jacques Anquetil. Frenchman Anquetil sported the yellow jersey for 51 days between 1957 and 1964 as he became the first rider to win the Tour five times. Armstrong, winner of the last four Tours, is still a long way behind Belgian Eddy Merckx, who led the Tour for 96 days, while France's Bernard Hinault was the race leader for 78 days and Spaniard Miguel Indurain for 60 days.

Euskatel fans push a struggling rider.

To see how Stage 13 of the Tour unfolded live, just go to our Live Update window and follow the action all the way to the finish.

The Tour de France of Danish team CSC looked to be over before it had even begun when leader Tyler Hamilton crashed and broke his collarbone on the very first stage. But two weeks later, the brave American is still in the race, lying fifth, four minutes and 25 seconds behind overall leader Lance Armstrong, and his teammates have now won two stages. Spaniard Carlos Sastre, 10th in the Tour last year, nearly became the team's leader when it was at first thought that Hamilton would be forced out. But he resumed his team duties until Saturday, when the Spaniard asked Hamilton permission to try

Mavic car, but going straight.

DH winner Dumaresq.

It was a big day in the Tour de France today. And there are still more to come, with the race hanging on the thread of 15 seconds between Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich. With one of four days in the Pyrénées down, all I am really thinking about now is making it to the finish in Paris – and making the best of next Saturday’s time trial along the way. If you were in the bus – the laughing group – like I was today, there was one thing very funny about today’s 13th stage: hearing the Italians crying as we tackled the major climbs. You could hear them. Crying. Why? They just thought we were

TV camera and fans stakeout the Postal Bus, hoping for a glimpse of Lance.

Jones celebrates his national title.

Lone straggler

Off the box.

It wasn’t only in the top overall placings of the Tour de France that important changes came about in Saturday’s first Pyrenean stage. If you cast your finger down to the end of the right column of the second page of the results sheet — or dragged your cursor to the last place — you’d notice a change that will have gone largely unnoticed. For the first time since stage 9, Belgian rider Hans De Clercq (Lotto-Domo) is no longer the Tour’s lanterne rouge — officially, the last placed rider on overall standings. De Clercq will most probably have taken his move up from last place to 161st at 2

Replenishment motos on the front of the race.

Dropping in.

Despite again losing time to Jan Ullrich on Saturday’s stage, Lance Armstrong is still in the yellow jersey and seems confident of winning his fifth Tour. Before stage 13 started in Toulouse, he happily signed a number of yellow jerseys as souvenirs for local VIPs and then shook hands with a line of local teenage cyclists who waited for him on the presentation stage. He signed more yellow jerseys after the finish, and happily answered questions in French for the France 2 network, which covers the Tour live. Then, after being held up during the chaos of finishing another stage in a small ski

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