Gerardmer, France – Lance Armstrong looked around for help and found none. He was alone, on a Tour de France climb, his rivals swarming all over him.
Armstrong’s usually trusty teammates failed him Saturday in the first encounter with the mountains, unable to match the punishing pace set on the day’s final ascent by riders determined to bring down the six-time champion.
“If it’s two more weeks of days like today, then you’re in trouble,” said Armstrong, who kept his overall lead after finishing in 20th place and was one minute ahead of Jens Voigt of Team CSC.
Digging in deep, Armstrong found the will and the way to fend off most of his challengers in the eighth stage, which was won by Dutch rider Pieter Weening in a sprint with Andreas Kloeden.
Armstrong and key rivals Jan Ullrich and Alexandre Vinokourov arrived in a pack, 27 seconds behind the two leaders.
The collapse of the Discovery Channel team and the strong challenges by the powerful German T-Mobile squad bode ill for Armstrong as harder climbs loom in the Alps.
“Definitely, a crisis within our team on the final climb,” Armstrong said. “For whatever reason I was left alone. We had a bad day as a team, and that makes it that much harder and I had to cover some big moves myself.”
T-Mobile is built around Ullrich, Vinokourov and Kloeden – challengers Armstrong has decisively beaten in the past.
Vinokourov was first to challenge Armstrong on the final Col de la Schlucht climb, surging ahead. Armstrong accelerated and caught him, but Vinokourov broke again, following French rider Christophe Moreau.
Armstrong and the other riders eyed each other warily as they continued ascending. Then, after another attack from Vinokourov, Kloeden suddenly sprinted ahead. Armstrong, knowing the German trailed him by 2 minutes, 29 seconds in the overall standings, cut his losses and let him go, concentrating instead on Vinokourov and Ullrich.
“You have to pick your fights. You can’t cover them all,” Armstrong said. “I was trying to do my best and minimize the damage.”
Armstrong, Ullrich and Vinokourov were part of a 32-rider pack at the end. Ullrich was sixth and Vinokourov 10th. Three of Armstrong’s teammates trailed nearly a minute behind, and the five others were a whopping 2:30 back.
Overall, Armstrong remained 1 minute, 2 seconds ahead of Vinokourov and 1:36 ahead of Ullrich.
Voigt moved up to second place overall. Vinokourov is third. Kloeden rose to ninth, picking up a time bonus for his second-place finish.
Tour de France
A brief look at Saturday’s eighth stage of the Tour de France:
Stage: A 143.8-mile route starting in Pforzheim, Germany, before crossing back into France to finish in Gerardmer. It featured five hills, including the hardest climb of the race so far – the Col de la Schlucht.
Winner: Pieter Weening, Netherlands, Rabobank, in 5 hours, 3 minutes, 54 seconds.
How others fared: Andreas Kloeden, Germany, T-Mobile, finished second in the same time as Weening; Jan Ullrich, Germany, T-Mobile, finished sixth; Alexandre Vinokourov, Kazakhstan, T-Mobile, finished 10th; Lance Armstrong, United States, Discovery Channel, finished 20th. All three were 27 seconds back from the front two.
Yellow jersey: Armstrong retains the overall lead – 1 minute ahead of Jens Voigt and 62 seconds ahead of Vinokourov.
Other jerseys: green (sprinter) – Tom Boonen, Belgium, Quick Step; polka-dot (climber) – Mickael Rasmussen, Denmark, Rabobank; white (youth) – Vladimir Karpets, Russia, Illes Balears-Caisse d’Epargne.
Quote of the day: “I’ll have to sit down with them tonight and ask what went wrong. I’ll have to ask, ‘What’s wrong with your legs?”‘ Perhaps we’ve been too active early on in the race.” – Armstrong, after his Discovery Channel teammates struggled in the Tour’s first serious climb
