The 92nd Tour de France begins Saturday on an island. That seems appropriate enough. After all, Lance Armstrong has dominated this race so thoroughly he might as well be on one.
He could end his career sailing into the sunset with Sheryl Crow – with whom sources say an engagement is imminent – or get eaten by the sharks wildly thrashing at his heels. It all depends on how he handles a route that does not play to his strengths.
Armstrong has won a record six Tour de Frances, all in a row, based primarily on his strength as a time trialer and mountain climber. This route has only one major individual time trial, one fewer than usual, and just six mountain stages, including only two in the Alps. A year ago, Armstrong won four of five mountain stages in the Alps, including the time trial up famed Alpe d’Huez, and waltzed to his record-breaking sixth win by 6 minutes, 19 seconds.
This year will have nine flat stages, many potentially dangerous. It starts with Saturday’s little oddity that kicks off Armstrong’s farewell Tour. The traditional opening prologue no longer is just a quick sprint around a European city.
It’s 11.4 miles from Fromentine, across a bridge and onto the island of Noirmoutier-en-I’lle, a fishing and sailing resort in the North Atlantic. It could mean rare significant seconds on the first day of the race.
The route then heads east through the Loire Valley, the Champagne region southeast of Paris and then slices into Germany. It’s mostly flat, but that doesn’t mean Armstrong can’t get into trouble.
“It’s a little bit easier whenever the Tour is like that,” said Denver-based Jonathan Vaughters, Armstrong’s former teammate and now part-time cycling commentator. “What it does is it puts in a bigger X factor. You go back to the 2001 Tour where there was a breakaway with 30-odd minutes in it. It just rolled away. No one was really concerned about it. No one really chased it.
“That’s the kind of thing that in this year’s Tour could happen.”
Armstrong also usually expects to get an early edge in the team trial stage – this year, a 40.5-mile route from Tours to Blois in the Loire Valley. A year ago his U.S. Postal team won by more than a minute, setting the tone for the rest of the Tour.
This year, however, his newly sponsored Discovery Channel team is missing his top two lieutenants, Floyd Landis to Phonak and Viatcheslav Ekimov to injury. T-Mobile, with chief rival Jan Ullrich and Andreas Kloden, last year’s runner-up overall, already have set a team goal to knock off Armstrong.
If T-Mobile does beat Discovery – and individual overall times are tied to team performance – Armstrong won’t get many opportunities in the Alps to make up ground.
L’Alpe d’Huez is not on this route. Instead, there are only two Alps stages: a July 12 ride from Grenoble to the famed ski resort of Courchevel, then the next day they go from Briancon to Digne-les-Baines.
“Initially I thought the Alps would be easier,” Armstrong said, “and after being there and having done them those two days in a row will be very hard. It’s going to be a tough seven, eight days. Beginning with Courchevel all the way to the Pyrenees is going to be tough.”
The race could be very tight heading into the Pyrenees in the final week. The route gets brutal and Armstrong is likely to make his move. Four consecutive stages go through the Pyrenees before emptying out in Pau in the foothills.
The most crucial stage of the race will be a savage journey from Lezat-sur-Leze to Saint- Lary-Soulan, a 123-mile run up six mountains totaling 28,235 feet of climbing at an average grade of 7.7 percent.
Vaughters thinks here is where Armstrong may have an advantage.
“As Lance has gotten older, he’s gotten less explosive, but he recovers better,” said Vaughters, who heads the Denver-based TIAA-CREF cycling team. “He also seems to be good in the last week of a stage race. Like in 2003, the times he’s been in trouble have been early in the mountains.
“Early in his career, it was exactly the opposite. He’d blow it out of the water early in the race and then hang on for dear life until the end. Last year and in 2003, he’s been better the last few mountains stages. If he keeps that pattern, this course will suit him.”
If he gets to Pau with the lead, he’ll have two dangerous hurdles left: a 143-mile up-and- down ride through the Massif Central to Revel, the longest stage in the race; and the only major individual time trial, a 33-mile stage to Saint-Etienne the day before the procession to Paris.
If he’s up for the challenge, and can avoid pitfalls, Armstrong will retire with seven straight Tour wins.
Vaughters tried to put that possibility in perspective.
“No one who is alive right now will see anyone break that record,” he said, “including my 5-year-old son.”
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
