American Lance Armstrong admitted he was surprised to see who exactly are his remaining rivals in the Tour de France after taking another step towards winning a record sixth yellow jersey.
The 32-year-old US Postal rider claimed his 17th stage victory overall on Saturday after beating Italy’s Ivan Basso, of the CSC team, with a winning sprint to the finish line to claim his first stage of the race this year.
Basso, Armstrong admitted, was one of the few riders who he already believed might trouble him.
But he said that Germany’s Andrea Kloden and Spaniard Francisco Mancebo, both of whom are not far behind him in the general classification, are along with Basso the new threats.
Armstrong’s path to what now seems an inevitable victory has been cleared of the obstacles that were supposed to stand in his way.
He did not expect to see Germany’s 1997 winner Jan Ullrich or his former teammate Tyler Hamilton drop out of contention, and Iban Mayo on Saturday suffered another humiliating day on the bike in front of thousands of Basque fans who lined the Pyrenean climbs.
T-Mobile team leader Ullrich, who has come runner-up on the race five times, has dropped to seven minutes behind Armstrong while Hamilton, who finished fourth last year, abandoned the tour on Saturday due to continuing back pains from an injury in a crash last week.
Mayo, who was also pinned back in the general classification by a crash in the first stage, almost abandoned on Saturday before finally finishing almost 38 minutes behind Armstrong.
In less than 10 days’ time, Armstrong may overtake Miguel Indurain who is the only other rider to have won five tours in a row.
And he admitted that for his US Postal team, it was as simple as adding and subtracting.
”That’s the tour. We come into the tour with a perception of who’s dangerous. That changes daily, so we have to change our tactics and change our view of the peloton,” said Armstrong when asked about the disappearance of his main rivals.
”And if somebody drops out or somebody rides quicker, then we have to either subtract them or add them.
”By losing riders, it’s not a problem for us. We just take their name off the list and we add somebody else.
”We have Kloden and Mancebo — these are not names we had at the top of the list before the tour. I already knew Basso would be dangerous here, but the names that drop off, they drop off.
”And the others, we watch closely,” added Armstrong, who is 22 seconds behind race leader Thomas Voeckler in the general classification.
Basso is third at 1,39; Kloden, of T-Mobile, is fourth at 3,18; and Baleares rider Mancebo is fifth at 3,28.
Armstrong will now have to keep an eye on Basso. His CSC team, run by 1996 tour winner Bjarne Riis, have been strong throughout the race and will do everything in their power to keep it that way.
Basso won Friday’s stage ahead of Armstrong, which the American said he had allowed to happen because of a friendship that has blossomed because Basso’s mother has cancer.
Cancer survivor Armstrong, however, did not let it happen a second time despite Basso pushing him all the way to the line on the 15,9km climb to the first unclassified finish on the tour.
”For me that was an all-out sprint. He started in front. Ivan had already set a fast tempo before that. But that was all the sprint I had in my legs. So I’m glad it worked.” — Sapa-AFP