American Lance Armstrong dealt another blow to his closest rivals on this year’s Tour de France by winning the 16th stage, an innovative 15,5km time trial up the legendary Alpe d’Huez in France on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old US Postal rider, wearing the yellow jersey, came over the finish line of the famous climb with the 21 hairpin bends in a time of 39 minutes and 41 seconds to guarantee further his ownership of the race leader’s yellow jersey.
It was Armstrong’s third stage win of the race and his 19th individual stage win overall from the Tour de France, following wins this year at Plateau de Beille and Villard-de-Lans.
It was also the Texan’s ninth time-trial victory from the race, including those won in the prologue.
Germany’s 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, who beat Armstrong by more than a minute-and-a-half in the first time trial of last year’s tour, finished at one minute and one second to claim second place.
His T-Mobile teammate Andreas Kloden finished third at 1,41.
CSC team leader Basso, who started the day as Armstrong’s closest rival at 1,25 in the general classification, was one of the biggest losers of the day, dropping nearly two-and-a-half minutes to his American rival.
Despite two-minute intervals between the favourites, Armstrong overtook Basso less than 4km from the finish line.
The 26-year-old Italian is now 3,48 behind Armstrong. Kloden, who started the day just more than three minutes behind the American, is still third overall but he is now at 5,03.
Ullrich, who has been losing snippets of time to Armstrong since the first day’s prologue in Liege nearly three weeks ago, is fourth in the general classification at 7,55.
Armstrong had to add weight to his bike before the start after it weighed in under the permitted minimum weight of 6,8kg.
However, that did not seem to bother the five-time champion, who had ridden the Alpe at least 10 times in his preparation for Wednesday’s crucial stage.
It was the first time the Alpe, which has featured 23 times on the tour during its 101-year history, had been contended as an individual time trial — and it did not lack drama.
Hundreds of thousands of cycling fans and partygoers had lined the 15,5km route, making it hard for most of the riders to push their way through the flags and fans, some of whom insisted on running alongside the riders.
At one point Ullrich was even given a gentle push, but it simply served to destabilise the 30-year-old German rider and he had to correct himself in order not to fall.
Ullrich had started the race well and led at all of the intermediate points, but once Armstrong got going the American appeared to be on a mission.
The US Postal team leader used his thorough knowledge of the Alpe to improve on Ullrich’s time after the first intermediate point.
From then on, he rode a flawless trial, finishing with panache with a sprint to the finish line.
Despite enjoying the win, Armstrong did not have kind words for some of the fans on the road.
”I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a time trial on the Alpe. It was scary. There were too many people, a lot of Germans, a lot of Belgians who weren’t being too nice,” he told French television.
”There were a lot of Americans as well.” — Sapa-AFP