Blois, France – With his head down and legs pumping, David Zabriskie sped Tuesday through the curving streets of this town of 50,000 on the Loire River, seemingly on his way to retaining the Tour de France yellow jersey and placing a bump in the path of his renowned countryman, Lance Armstrong.
But with the finish line less than a mile ahead, disaster struck: Zabriskie crashed at more than 30 mph. He staggered up, his left arm and leg bloody and raw. Using a replacement bike, Zabriskie wobbled as he tried to get started, then got a push and finished the race.
Zabriskie, an unassuming 26-year-old from Salt Lake City, had worn the coveted leader’s shirt since Saturday’s opening stage of the 92nd Tour de France. Going into Tuesday’s team time trial, the fourth stage, he led Armstrong by two seconds.
“He may have been elbowed by a spectator,” said Bryan Nygaard, a spokesman for Zabriskie’s CSC team. The Outdoor Life Network video seemed to show his front wheel touched the wheel of another bike.
Whatever the cause, the damage was done: Zabriskie had lost his overall lead, and Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team won the fourth stage by two seconds over CSC. That gave Armstrong the yellow jersey for the first time in this year’s Tour, as the Texan seeks an unprecedented seventh consecutive victory before retiring.
“It’s always nice to be in yellow,” said Armstrong, 33. “But there are three or four flat stages coming, so it will not be easy to defend the jersey.”
Armstrong won the yellow jersey six times during last year’s Tour, the first time in fourth stage – the team time trial, in which each nine-man team rides as a single-file unit, with members taking turns in the lead to ensure fresh legs and lungs.
The time for each team’s fifth-best finisher is recognized as its official result, and is added to the individuals’ overall totals. There is only one team time trial in the 21-stage, 2,224-mile Tour.
The dramatic outcome gave Armstrong a 55-second overall lead over his teammate, George Hincapie. German Jens Voight of CSC is third and Glenwood Springs native Bobby Julich, also of CSC, stands fourth.
Zabriskie, who dropped to ninth, was taken by ambulance to a hospital for X-rays of his left knee, elbow and rib cage. There were no fractures, and Ny- gaard said Zabriskie would ride today’s 133-mile stage between the chateau town Chambord and Montargis, an industrial center south of Paris. The other prerace favorites are dangerously far behind the Tour’s grandest rider.
Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan, a member of the T-Mobile team, is seventh. Five-time runner-up Jan Ullrich of Germany, also of T-Mobile, is 14th. Floyd Landis, Armstrong’s teammate last year, had bragged that his Phonak squad would dethrone the Discovery Channel team. Instead, Phonak was fifth and Landis is 20th.
Armstrong called this time trial “stressful.” Though he gained fewer seconds than he might in the mountains, the team victory was seen as a psychological boost.
There were whispers that Discovery – missing Viatcheslav Ekimov, who hurt his back this spring, and Landis, who abandoned Armstrong’s team last fall to become leader of Phonak – was vulnerable this year.
But the two new members, Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych and Italian Paolo Savoldelli, stepped up.
“Popo was unbelievable. That kid is a gamer. He was flying. I think he performed his role with a bit of Eki’s spirit,” Armstrong said, referring to the injured Ekimov.
CSC had led Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team at both of the timing checkpoints along 41.85 miles from Tours to Blois and seemed to be in a strong position before Zabriskie’s spill.
CSC sports director Bjarn Riis, a Tour winner himself, called it “tragic” for his team.
“It was completely bad luck,” he said. “We are the most unlucky team. We were so close to winning this stage that we wanted more than anything. I thought that it was luck for Discovery Channel to win. And Dave Zabriskie is a devastated young man. He said all of a sudden someone elbowed him. We don’t know.”
Discovery Channel finished the 41.85- mile race from Tours in 1 hour, 10 minutes, 39 seconds, setting a team time trial speed record with an average 35.54 mph. The previous record was 34.06 mph set by Swiss team Gewiss in 1995.
